
Qass_ 



REMAINS IN VERSE AND PROSE. 



*- 



REMAINS IN VEIISE AND THOSE 



ARTHUK HENRY ilALLAM 



WITH A PREFACE AND MEMOIR 



Vattene in pace^ alma beata e bella. — Ariosto 




BOSTON 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS 

1863 



?K^1% 



^%^ 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON. 



/a.-ss?3/ 



CONTENTS. 
— f— 

PAGE 

ADVERTISEMENT 7 

PREFACE — MEMOIR OF ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 9 

MEMOIR OF HENRY FITZMAURICE HALLAM 53 

MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS IN BLANK VERSE 69 

TIMBUCTOO 86 

SONNETS. 

ALLA STATUA, CH' E A FIREKZE DI LORENZO DUCA 

D'URBINO, SCOLTA DA MICHEL ANGIOLO 97 

GENOVA BELLA, A CUI L' ALTIERA VOCE 98 

TO AN ENGLISH LADY 99 

SCRITTE SUL LAGO D'ALBANO 99 

ON A LADY SUFFERING SEVERE ILLNESS 101 

ALLA SIREN A, NUME AVITO Dl NAPOLI 102 

ON THE PICTURE OF THE THREE FATES IN THE 

PALAZZO PITTI, AT FLORENCE 103 

TO MALEK 104 

OH BLESSING AND DELIGHT OF MY YOUNG HEART. 105 

EVEN THUS, METHINKS, A CITY REARED SHOULD BE 106 

TO AN ADMIRED LADY 107 

STANZAS. 

WRITTEN AFTER VISITINfi MELROSE ABBEY IN COM- 
PANY OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 108 

WRITTEN AT CAUDEBEC IN NORMANDY Ill 

A FAREWELL TO GLENARBAC 113 

WRITTEN ON THE BANKS OF THE TAY 116 

ON MY sister's BIRTHDAY 118 

FROM SCHILLER 123 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LINES SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF PYGMALION 125 

TO TWO SISTERS 127 

THIS WAS MY LAY IN SAD NOCTURNAL HOUR 131 

TO THE LOVED ONE 133 

SONNET. TO MY MOTHER 137 

A LOVER'S REPROOF 138 

SONNET. A MELANCHOLY THOUGHT HAD LAID ME LOW.. 140 

A SCENE IN SUMMER 141 

SONNETS. 

OH POETRY, OH RAREST SPIRIT OF ALL. 143 

ALAS ! THAT SOMETIMES EVEN A DUTEOUS LIFE. . . . 144 
WHY THROBBEST THOU, MY HEART, WHY THICKLY 

BREATHEST 145 

STILL HERE — THOU HAST NOT FADED FROM MY 

SIGHT 146 

LADY, I BID THEE TO A SUNNY DOME 147 

SPEED YE, WARM HOURS, ALONG TH' APPOINTED 

PATH 148 

WHEN GENTLE FINGERS CEASE TO TOUCH THE 

STRING 149 

THE GARDEN TREES ARE BUSY WITH THE SHOWER 150 

SCENE AT ROME 151 

ON SYMPATHY 159 

ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF ITALIAN WORKS OF 
IMAGINATION ON THE SAME CLASS OF COMPOSI- 
TIONS IN ENGLAND 180 

ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO.... 227 
REMARKS ON PROFESSOR ROSSETTI'S "DISQUISIZIONI SULLO 

SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE" 317 

EXTRACT FROM A REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS 424 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



fHE Editor of the following Poems has 
been induced, after the lapse of many- 
years, to reprint a limited number of copies. 
Arthur Henry Hallam had the happiness to 
possess the friendship of one, then as young as 
himself, whose name has risen to the highest 
place among our living poets. What this dis- 
tinguished person felt for one so early torn 
from him, has been displayed in those beau- 
tiftil poems, intitled " In Memoriam, " which 
both here and in America have been read with 
admiration and dehght. The image of Arthur 
hovers, like a dim shadow, over these ; and 
as the original copies of his own productions, 
given solely to his friends, are not easily to be 
procured, it has been thought by the Editor, 
after much deliberation, that others may be 



8 ADVERTISEMENT. 

interested in possessing them. A few have 
not been reprinted in this Edition. 

Another great calamity fell on the Editor 
about two years since ; a second time he was 
bereaved of a son, whose striking resemblance 
in character to Arthur had long been his con- 
solation and his pride. It is, therefore, appro- 
priate on the present occasion to subjoin a short 
memoir of Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, drawn 
up soon after his death by two very intimate 
friends, Henry Sumner Maine and Franklin 
Lushington. Never were brothers more akin 
in every moral excellence of disposition, or in 
their habitual pursuits, or in a depth of thought 
which did not exclude a lively perception of 
what was passing before them, and an entire 
enjoyment of friendly intercourse. 

March, 1853. 




PREFACE. 



HE writer of the following Poems 
and Essays was so well known to 
i ^ the greater part of those into whose 
hands they are likely to come, that it may seem 
almost superfluous to commemorate a name lit- 
tle likely to fade from their recollection. Yet 
it is a pious, though at the same time, a very 
painftd oflice, incumbent on the Editor, to fur- 
nish a few notices of a life as remarkable for 
the early splendor of genius, and for uniform 
moral excellence, as that of any one who has 
fallen under his observation ; especially as some 
there must probably be, who will read these 
pages with little previous knowledge of him to 
whom they relate. 

Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford 
Place, London, on the 1st of February, 1811. 



10 PREFACE. 

Very few years had elapsed before his parents 
observed strong indications of his future char- 
acter, in a pecuUar clearness of perception, a 
facility of acquiring knowledge, and above all, 
in an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and 
adherence to his sense of what was right and 
becoming. As he advanced to another stage 
of childhood, it was rendered still more mani- 
fest that he would be distinguished from ordi- 
nary persons, by an increasing thoughtfulness, 
and a fondness for a class of books, which in 
general are so little intelHgible to boys of his 
age that they excite in them no kind of in- 
terest. 

In the summer of 1818, he spent some 
months with his parents in Germany and Swit- 
zerland, and became familiar with the French 
language, which he had already learned to read 
with facility. He had gone through the ele- 
ments of Latin before this time ; but that lan- 
guage having been laid aside during his tour, 
it was found upon his retui'n, that a variety 
of new scenes having effaced it from his mem- 
ory, it was necessary to begin again with the 
first rudiments. 



PREFACE. II 

He was nearly eight years old at this time ; 
and in little more than twelve months he 
could read Latin with tolerable facility. In 
this period his mind was developing itself more 
rapidly than before ; he now felt a keen relish 
for di-amatic poetry, and wrote several trage- 
dies, if we may so call them, either in prose 
or verse, with a more precocious display of 
talents than the Editor remembers to have met 
with in any other individual. The natural 
pride, however, of his parents did not bhnd 
them to the uncertainty that belongs to all 
prematm-e efforts of the mind; and they so 
carefully avoided everything like a boastful dis- 
play of blossoms, which, in many cases have 
withered away in barren luxuriance, that the 
cncumstance of these compositions was hardly 
ever mentioned out of their own family. 

In the spring of 1820, Arthur was placed 
under the Rev. W. Carmalt, at Putney, where 
he remained nearly two years. After leavmg 
this school, he went abroad again for some 
months; and in October, 1822, became the 
pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an assistant 
master of Eton College. At Eton he contmued 



12 PREFACE, 

till the summer of 1827. He was now become 
a good, tliough not perhaps a first-rate scholar, 
in the Latin and Greek languages. The loss 
of time, relatively to this object, in travelling, 
but far more, his increasing avidity for a differ- 
ent kind of knowledge, and the strong bent of 
his mind to subjects which exercise other facul- 
ties than such as the acquirement of languages 
calls into play, will sufficiently account for what 
might seem a comparative deficiency in classi- 
cal learning. It can only however be reckoned 
one, comparatively to his other attainments, and 
to his remarkable facility in mastering the mod- 
ern languages. 

The Editor has thought it not improper to 
print in the following pages an Eton exercise, 
which, as written before the age of fourteen, 
though not free from metrical and other errors, 
appears, perhaps, to a partial judgment, far above 
the level of such compositions. It is remarkable 
that he should have selected the story of Ugo- 
lino, from a poet with whom, and with whose 
language he was then but very slightly ac- 
quainted, but who was afterwards to become, 
more perhaps than any other, the master mover 



PREFACE, 13 

of his spirit. It may be added that great judg- 
ment and taste are perceptible in this transla- 
tion, Avhich is by no means a literal one ; and 
in which the phraseology of Sophocles is not ill 
substituted, in some passages, for that of Dante. 

The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally 
reckoned at that school the chief test of his 
literary talent. That of Arthur was good with- 
out being excellent ; he never wanted depth of 
thought, or truth of feehng ; but it is only in a 
few rare instances, if altogether in any, that an 
original mind has been known to utter itself 
freely and vigorously, without sacrifice of pu- 
rity, in a language the capacities of which are 
so imperfectly understood; and in his produc- 
tions there was not the thorough conformity to 
an ancient model wliich is required for perfect 
elegance in Latin verse. He took no great 
pleasure in this sort of composition ; and per- 
haps never returned to it of his own accord. 

In the latter part of his residence at Eton, 
he was led away more and more by the pre- 
dominant bias of his mind from the exclusive 
study of ancient literature. The poets of Eng- 



14 PREFACE. 

land, especially the older dramatists, came with 
greater attraction over his spirit. He loved 
Fletcher and some of Fletcher's contemporaries, 
for their energy of language and intenseness of 
feehng; but it was in Shakspeare alone that he 
found the fulness of soul which seemed to slake 
the thirst of his own rapidly expanding genius 
for an inexhaustible fountain of thought and 
emotion. He knew Shakspeare thoroughly ; 
and indeed his acquaintance with the early poe- 
try of this country was very extensive. Among 
the modern poets, Byi'on was at this time far 
above the rest and almost exclusively his favor- 
ite ; a preference which in later years he trans- 
ferred altogether to Wordsworth and Shelley. 

He became, when about fifteen years old, a 
member of the debating society established 
among the elder boys, in which he took great 
interest; and this served to confirm the bias 
of his intellect towards the moral and political 
philosophy of modern times. It was probably 
however of important utility in giving him that 
command of his own language which he pos- 
sessed, as the following Essays will show, in a 
very superior degree, and in exercising those 



PREFACE. 15 

powers of argumentative discussion which now 
displayed themselves as eminently characteris- 
tic of his mind. It was a necessary conse- 
quence that he declined still more j&'om the 
usual parts of study, and abated perhaps some- 
what of his regard for the writers of antiquity. 
It must not be understood, nevertheless, as most 
of those who read these pages will be aware, 
that he ever lost his sensibility to those ever- 
living effiisions of genius which the ancient 
languages preserve. He loved ^schylus and 
Sophocles (to Euripides he hardly did justice), 
Lucretius and Virgil ; if he did not seem so 
much drawn to Homer as might at first be ex- 
pected, this may probably be accounted for by 
his increasing taste for philosophical poetry. 

In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part 
in the " Eton Miscellany," a periodical pub- 
lication, in which some of his friends in the 
debating society were concerned. He wrote 
in this, besides a few papers in prose, a little 
poem on a story connected with the Lake of 
Killamey. It has not been thought by the 
Editor advisable, upon the whole, to reprint 
these hnes ; though, in his opinion, they bear 



l6 PREFACE. 

very striking marks of superior powers. This 
was almost the first poetry that Arthur had 
written, except the childish tragedies above 
mentioned. No one was ever less inclined to 
the trick of versifying. Poetry with him was 
not an amusement, but the natural and almost 
necessary language of genuine emotion ; and 
it was not till the disciphne of serious reflec- 
tion, and the approach of manhood gave a re- 
ality and intenseness to such emotions, that he 
learned the capacities of his own genius. That 
he was a poet by nature these Remains will suffi- 
ciently prove ; but certainly he was far removed 
from being a versifier by nature; nor was he 
probably able to perform, what he scarce ever 
attempted, to write easily and elegantly on an 
ordinary subject. The lines in p. 125, on the 
story of Pygmalion, are so far an exception, 
that they arose out of a momentary amuse- 
ment of society ; but he could not avoid, 
even in these, his own grave tone of poetry. 
Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, 
he accompanied his parents to the Continent, 
and passed eight months in Italy. This in- 
troduction to new scenes of nature and art, 
and to new sources of intellectual delight, at 



PREFACE. 17 

the very period of transition from boyliood to 
youth, sealed no doubt the pecuHar character 
of his mind, and taught him, too soon for his 
peace, to sound those depths of thought and 
feehng, from which, after this time, all that 
he wrote was derived. He had, when he 
passed the Alps, only a moderate acquaintance 
with the Italian language ; but during his res- 
idence in the comitry, he came to sjieak it 
with perfect fluency, and with a pure Sienese 
pronvmciation. In his study he was much 
assisted by his fr-iend and instructor, the Ab- 
bate Pifferi, who encouraged him to his first 
attempts at versification. The few sonnets 
which are now printed were, it is to be re- 
membered, written by a foreigner, hardly seven- 
teen years old, and after a very short stay in 
Italy. The Editor might not, probably, have 
suffered them to appear, even in this private 
manner, upon his own judgment. But he 
knew that the greatest living writer of Italy, 
to whom they were shown some time since 
at Milan, by the author's excellent fr^iend, Mr. 
Richard Milnes, had expressed himself in terms 
of high approbation ; and he is able to confirm 
this by the testimony of Mr. Panizzi, which he 



1 8 PREFACE. 

must take the liberty to insert in his own 
words : — 

" My dear Sir, — I do not know how 
to express myself respecting the Itahan son- 
nets which I have had the pleasure to read 
several times, lest I might appear blinded by 
my affection for the memory of their lamented 
author. They are much superior not only to 
what foreigners have written, but to what I 
thought possible for them to write in Itahan. 
I have formed this opinion after having pe- 
rused the poems repeatedly last evening as 
well as this morning, and tried (although in 
vain) to forget by whom they were written." 

The growing intimacy of Arthur with Ital- 
ian poetry, led him naturally to that of Dante. 
No poet was so congenial to the character of 
his own reflective mind ; in none other could 
he so abundantly find that disdain of flowery 
redundance, that perpetual reference of the sen- 
sible to the ideal, that aspiration for somewhat 
better and less fleeting than earthly things, to 
which his inmost soul responded. Like all 
genuine worshippers of the great Florentine 



PREFA CE. 19 

Poet, he rated the " Inferno " below the two 
later portions of the "Divina Commedia ; " there 
was nothing even to revolt his taste, but rath- 
er much to attract it, in the scholastic theology 
and mystic visions of the " Paradiso." Petrarch 
he greatly admired, though with less idolatry 
than Dante ; and the sonnets here printed will 
show to all competent judges how fully he 
had imbibed the spirit, without servile centon- 
ism, of the best writers in that style of com- 
position who flourished in the 16th century. 

But Poetry was not an absorbing passion at 
this time in his mind. His eyes were fixed 
on the best pictures with silent, intense dehght. 
He had a deep and just perception of what was 
beautiful in this Art ; at least in its higher 
schools ; for he did not pay much regard or 
perhaps quite do justice, to the masters of the 
17th century. To technical criticism he made 
no sort of pretension ; painting was to him but 
the visible language of emotion ; and where it 
did not aim at exciting it, or employed inade- 
quate means, his admiration would be with- 
held. Hence he highly prized the ancient 
paintings, both Italian and German, of the age 



20 PREFACE. 

which preceded the full development of Art. 
But he was almost as enthusiastic an admirer 
of the Venetian, as of the Tuscan and Roman, 
Schools ; considering these Masters as reach- 
ing the same end by the different agencies of 
form and color. This predilection for the sen- 
sitive beauties of painting is somewhat analo- 
gous to his fondness for harmony of verse, on 
which he laid more stress than poets so thought- 
ful are apt to do. In one of the last days of his 
life, he lingered long among the fine Venetian 
pictures of the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. 

He returned to England in June, 1828 ; and 
in the following October went down to reside 
at Cambridge ; having been entered on the 
boards of Trinity College before his departure 
to the Continent. He was the pupil of the 
Rev. Wm. Whewell. In some respects, as 
soon became manifest, he was not formed to ob- 
tain great academical reputation. An acquaint- 
ance with the learned languages, considerable 
at the school where he was educated, but not 
improved, to sa}^ the least, by the intermission 
of a year, during which his mind had been so 
occupied by other pursuits, that he had thought 



PRE FA CE. 2 ^ 

little of antiquity even in Rome itself, though 
abundantly sufficient for the gratification of 
taste and the acquisition of knowledge, was 
sure to prove inadequate to the searching scru- 
tiny of modern examinations. He soon, there- 
fore, saw reason to renounce all competition 
of this kmd; nor did he ever so much as at- 
tempt any Greek or Latin composition during 
his stay at Cambridge. In truth, he was very 
indifferent to success of this kind; and con- 
scious, as he must have been, of a high reputa- 
tion among his contemporaries, he could not 
think that he stood in need of any University 
distinctions. The Editor became, by degrees, 
almost equally mdifferent to what he perceived 
to be so uncongenial to Arthur's mind. It was, 
however, to be regretted, that he never paid 
the least attention to mathematical studies. 
That he should not prosecute them with the 
diligence usual at Cambridge, was of course to 
be expected ; yet his clearness and acumen would 
certainly have enabled him to master the prin- 
ciples of geometrical reasoning; nor, in fact, 
did he so much find a difficulty in apprehend- 
ing demonstrations, as a want of interest, and 
a consequent inabihty to retain them in his 



22 PREFA CE. 

memory. A little more practice in the strict 
logic of geometry, a little more familiarity with 
the physical laws of the universe, and the phe- 
nomena to which they relate, would possibly 
have repressed the tendency to vague and mys- 
tical speculation which he was too fond of in- 
dulging. In the philosophy of the human mind, 
he was in no danger of the materiahzing theories 
of some ancient and modern schools ; but in shun- 
ning this extreme, he might sometimes forget, 
that in the honest pursuit of truth, we can shut 
our eyes to no real phenomena, and that the 
physiology of man must always enter into any 
valid scheme of his psychology. 

The comparative inferiority which he might 
show in the usual trials of knowledge sprung 
in a great measure from the want of a prompt 
and accurate memory. It was the faculty 
wherein he shone the least, according to ordi- 
nary observation ; though his very extensive 
reach of literatm^e, and his rapidity in acquiring 
languages, sufficed to prove that it was capable 
of being largely exercised. He could remem- 
ber anything, as a friend observed to the Edi- 
tor, that was associated with an idea. But he 



PREFACE. 23 

seemed, at least after lie reached manhood, to 
want almost wholly the power, so common with 
inferior understandings, of retaining with regu- 
larity and exactness, a number of unimport- 
ant uninteresting particulars. It would have 
been nearly impossible to make him recollect 
for three days, the date of the battle of Mara- 
thon, or the names in order of the Athenian 
months. Nor could he repeat poetry, much as 
he loved it, with the correctness often fomid 
in young men. It is not improbable that a 
more steady discipline in early life would have 
strengthened this faculty, or that he might have 
supplied this deficiency by some technical de- 
vices ; but where the higher powers of intellect 
were so extraordinarily manifested, it would 
have been preposterous to complain of what 
may perhaps have been a necessary consequence 
of their amplitude, or at least a natural result 
of their exercise. 

But another reason may be given for his de- 
ficiency in those unremitting labors which the 
course of academical education, in the present 
times, is supposed to exact from those who as- 
pire to its distinctions. In the first year of his 



24 PREFACE. 

residence at Cambridge, symptoms of disordered 
health, especially in the circulatory system, 
began to show themselves ; and it is by no 
means improbable, that these were indications 
of a tendency to derangement of the vital func- 
tions, which became ultimately fatal. A too 
rapid determination of blood towards the brain, 
with its concomitant uneasy sensations, ren- 
dered him frequently incapable of mental fatigue. 
He had indeed once before, at Florence, been 
affected by symptoms not unlike these. His in- 
tensity of reflection and feeling also brought on 
occasionally a considerable depression of spirits, 
which had been painfully observed at times by 
those who watched him most from the time or 
his leaving Eton, and even before. It was not 
till after several months that he regained a less 
morbid condition of mind and body. The same 
irregularity of circulation returned again in the 
next spring, but was of less duration. During 
the thfrd year of his Cambridge life, he appeared 
in much better health. 

In this year (1831), he obtained the first 
College Prize for an Enghsh declamation. The 
subject chosen by him was the conduct of the 



PREFACE. 25 

Indei>endent party during the Civil War. This 
exercise was greatly admired at the time, but 
was never printed. In consequence of this suc- 
cess, it became incumbent on him, according 
to the custom of the College, to deliver an 
Oration in the Chapel immediately before the 
Christmas vacation of the same year. On this 
occasion, he selected a subject very congenial 
to his own turn of thought and fiivorite study, 
— the Influence of Italian upon English Liter- 
ature. He had previously gained another prize 
for an English essay on the philosophical writ- 
ino-s of Cicero. This Essay is, perhaps, too 
excursive from the prescribed subject ; but his 
mind was so deeply imbued with the higher 
philosophy, especially that of Plato, with which 
he was very conversant, that he could not be 
expected to dwell much on the praises of Cicero 
in that respect. 

Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no 
means inclined him to strict research into facts, 
he was frill as much conversant with the great 
features of ancient and modern History, as from 
the course of his other studies and the habits 
of his life, it was possible to expect. He reck- 



26 PREFACE. 

oned tliem, as great minds always do, the 
ground-works of moral and political philosophy, 
and took no pains to acquire any knowledge 
of this sort, from which a principle could not 
be derived or illustrated. To some parts of 
English history, and to that of the French 
Revolution, he had paid considerable attention. 
He had not read nearly so much of the Greek 
and Latin Historians, as of the Philosophers 
and Poets. In the history of literary, and 
especially of philosophical and religious opinions, 
he was deeply versed, as much so as it is pos- 
sible to apply that term at his age. The fol- 
lowing pages exhibit proofs of an acquaintance, 
not crude or superficial, with that important 
branch of Literature. 

His political judgments were invariably 
prompted by his strong sense of right and 
justice. These, in so young a person, were 
naturally rather fluctuating, and subject to the 
correction of advancing knowledge and experi- 
ence. Ardent in the cause of those he deemed 
to be oppressed, of which, in one instance, he 
was led to give a proof with more of energy 
and enthusiasm than discretion, he was deeply 



PREFACE. 27 

attached to the ancient institutions of his 
country. 

He spoke French readily, though with less 
eleoance than Italian, till from disuse he lost 
much of his fluency in the latter. In his last 
fatal tour in Germany, he was rapidly acquiring 
a reachness in the language of that country. 
The whole range of French literature was 
almost as familiar to him as that of Eng- 
land. 

The society in which Arthur lived most in- 
timately, at Eton and at the University, was 
formed of young men, eminent for natural 
ability and for delight in what he sought above 
all things, — the knowledge of truth and the 
perception of beauty. They who loved and 
admired him living, and who now revere his 
sacred memory, as of one to whom, in the 
fondness of regret, they admit of no rival, 
know best what he was in the daily commerce 
of Life ; and his eulogy should, on every ac- 
count, better come from hearts, which, if par- 
tial, have been rendered so by the experience 
of friendship, not by the affection of nature. 



28 PREFACE. 

One of his most valued friends has kindly made 
a communication to the Editor, which he can- 
not but insert in this place. 

"JfarcA 11, 1834. 

" My dear Sir, — I have delayed writing 
lonoer than I thouo;ht to have done ; hut dwell- 
ing upon the pleasant hours of my intercourse 
with Arthur, has brought with it a sense of 
changes and losses which has, I think, taken 
away all my spirits. At best, I cannot pretend 
to give you anything like an adequate account of 
his habits and studies, even during the few years 
of our fr'iendship. My own mind lagged so far be- 
hind his, that I can be no fit judge of his career ; 
besides, the studies which were then my busi- 
ness, lay in a difterent direction ; and we were 
seldom together, except in the ordinary hours of 
relaxation, or when a truant_disposition stretched 
them later into the evening. I can scarcely 
hope to describe to you the feelings with which 
I regarded him, much less the daily beauty of 
his life out of which they grew. Numberless 
scenes, indeed, grave and gay, come back upon 
me, which mark him to me as the most accom- 
plished person I have known or shall know. 



J lour 
dow w 



PREFACE. 29 

But the displays of liis gifts aud graces were 
not for show ; they sprang naturally out of the 
passing occasion, and being separated from it, 
would lose their life and meaning. And per- 
liaps, the very brightness and gayety of those 
's, would contrast too harshly with the sha- 
hich has passed over them. Outwardly, 
I do not know that there Avas anything remark- 
able in his habits, except an irregularity with 
regard to times and places of study, which may 
seem surprising in one whose progress in every 
direction was so eminently great and rapid. He 
was commonly to be found in some friend's 
room, reading: or conversino; : a habit which he 
himself felt to be a fault and a loss ; and he 
had occasional fits of reformation, when he 
adhered to hours and plans of reading, with a 
perseverance which left no doubt of his power 
to become a strict economiser of time. I dare 
say he lost something by this irregularity; but 
less, perhaps, than one would at first imagine. 
I never saw liim idle. He mio-ht seem to be 
lounging or only amusing himself; but his mind, 
as far as I could judge, was ahvays active, and 
active for good. In fact, his energy and quick- 
ness of apprehension did not stand in need of 



30 PREFA CE. 

outward aids. He could read or discuss meta- 
physics as he lay on the sofa after dinner, sur- 
rounded by a noisy party, with as much care 
and acuteness as if he had been alone ; and that 
on such subjects he could never have contented 
himself with idle or slovenly thinking, the writ- 
ings he has left sufficiently prove. In other 
respects, his habits were like those of his com- 
panions. He Avas fond of society; the society 
(at least) which he could command at Cam- 
bridge. He moved chiefly in a set of men of 
literary habits, remarkable for free and friendly 
intercourse, whose characters, talents, and opin- 
ions of every complexion, were brought into 
continual collision, all license of discussion per- 
mitted, and no offence taken. And he was 
looked up to by all as the life and grace of 
the party. His studies again (though as I 
said, I am not the person best qualified to Speak 
of them), were, upon the whole, desultory. He 
pursued all with vigor and effect ; but I think 
none (while he was among us, at least,) sys- 
tematically. His chief pleasure and strength lay 
certainly in metaphysical analysis. He would 
read any metaphysical book, under any circum- 
stances, with avidity; and I never knew him 



PREFACE. 31 

decline a metapliyslcal discussion. He would 
always pursue the argument eagerly to the end, 
and follow his antagonist into the most difficult 
places. But indeed, nothing in the shape of 
literature or philosophy came amiss to him ; 
there was no kind of intellectual power which 
did not seem native to him ; no kind of discus- 
sion in which he could not take an active and 
brilliant part. If he had not as yet made the 
very most of his powers in any one path, that 
loss would have been amply made up in the 
end, by the fuller and more complete develop- 
ment of the whole mind. In the end, he would 
have found out his vocation ; his other powers 
would have subsided into their natural subordi- 
nation, and his range of thought in the chosen 
path would have been proportionably enlarged. 
As , it is, the compositions which he has left 
(marvellous as they are) are inadequate evi- 
dences of his actual power, except to those who 
had watched the workings of his mind, and seen 
that his mighty spirit (beautiful and powei-fol 
as it had already grown) yet bore all the marks 
of youth, and growth, and ripening promise. 
His powers had not yet arranged themselves 
into the harmony for which they were designed. 



32 PREFACE. 

He sometimes allowed one to interfere witli the 
due exercise of another. Thus, his genius for 
metaphysical analysis, sometimes interfered with 
his genius for poetry; and his natural skill in 
the dazzling fence of rhetoric, was in danger of 
misleading and bewildering him in his higher 
vocation of philosopher. Moreover, he was not, 
it appeared to me, a very patient thinker. He 
read, thought, and composed with great rapid- 
ity ; sometimes, as I used to tell him, with more 
haste than speed, — so that he did not always 
do full justice either to his author, or himself, 
or his reader. In anticipating his author's mean- 
ing too hastily, he sometimes misconceived. His 
own theories he was constantly changing and 
modifying ; and he generally demanded from his 
reader, or hearer, a comprehension as quick and 
subtle as his own. Perhaps, I am speaking 
rgnorantly ; — this was an old subject of dispute 
between him and myself. But, if I am right, 
it seems due to his memory that it should be 
known how far what he had done falls short 
of what a few years hence he would have done, 
— how far his vast and various powers yet were 
from having attained their full stature and ma- 
ture proportions. The distinctions which the 



PREFACE. 33 

University holds out, he set little value on ; or 
there is no doubt he might have distinguished 
himself without difficulty in either line. But in 
mathematics, for which he was in some respects 
singularly qualified, he declined the drudgery 
of the apprenticeship ; and, as a scholar, he was 
content to feel and enjoy (which no man did 
with a finer rehsh) the classical writings, with- 
out affecting accurate or curious learning. For 
myself, I diflPered from him on many points, both 
of politics, literature, and philosophy; but our 
disputes never for a moment blinded me to the 
excellence of his gifts, and the weight of his 
opinion, and the light which his conversation 
threw on every subject, where we differed or 
wdiere we agreed. I have met with no man 
his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no man 
his equal as a philosophical critic on works of 
taste ; no man whose views on all subjects con- 
nected with the duties and dignities of humanity 
were more large, more generous, and enlight- 
ened. I have thus frankly given you my opin- 
ion of his intellectual powers ; not because I can 
attach any value to it, nor, I think, would he 
have done so, but because it may be interesting 
to you to know the estimation he was held in 

3 



34 PREFACE, 

by his companions, and the effect which his 
society 23roducecl upon their minds. Of his 
character as a friend and companion, I can 
speak with more confidence. While we were 
together, it left me nothing to desire ; now that 
we are parted, there are hut two things which 
I conld wish had been otherwise, — that I had 
known him sooner, and that I had been a more 
careful steward of the treasure while it lasted. 
But how could I have guessed how soon it was 
to be withdrawn? For Ihe rest, I look back 
upon those days with unmixed comfort; not a 
word ever passed between us that I need now 
wish unsaid. Perhaps I ought to mention that 
when I first knew him, he was subject to occa- 
sional fits of mental depression, which gradually 
grew fewer and fainter, and had at length, I 
thought, disappeared, or merged in a peaceftil 
Christian faith. I have witnessed the same in 
other ardent and adventurous minds, and liave 
always looked upon them as the s^anptom, in- 
deed, of an imperfect moral state, but one to 
which the finest spirits, during the process of 
their purification, are most subject. I seldom 
saw him under these influences, and never 
talked with him on the subject. With me he 



PREFACE. 35 

was all summer, always cheerful, always kind, 
pleasant in all his moods, brilliant in all com- 
panies, — 'a pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.' 
No man tempered wit and wisdom so gracc- 
fidly; no man was so perfectly made to be 
admired for his excellent accomplishments ; to 
be revered for his true heart and chivalrous 
principle ; to be delighted in for the sweetness, 
and gayety, and graciousness of his life and con- 
versation ; to be loved for all his quahties. 
When I think on these things, and look back 
on. what I have written, I am ashamed to think 
how little I have been able to say of such a 
man, that is calculated to give even a faint 
notion of how he lived and what he was. But, 
perhaps, I shall not mend the matter by saying 
more. But do not think that the feelings which 
I have endeavored to express are exaggerated 
for the occasion. From the time that I became 
his familiar friend till the day of his death, I 
never regarded him with any other feelings. 
Thouo'h we lived on the freest and most care- 
less terms, using daily all licence of raillery and 
criticism, he never caused in me a momentary 
feeling of displeasure, or annoyance, or even 
impatience ; and, if I had drawn up an estimate 



36 PREFACE. 

of his character m ovu' day of careless hope, 
when I httle dreamed how soon his name might 
become a sacred one, I should have spoken of 
him in substance, even as I speak of him now." 
The Editor is desirous to subjoin part of a 
letter from another of Arthur's earliest and most 
intimate friends, which displays much of his 
tastes in literature and poetry, as the last does 
of his philosophical pursuits : — 

" Aiyril 12, 1834. 

" I HAVE known many young men both . at 
Oxford and elsewhere, of whose abilities I think 
highly, but I never met with one whom I con- 
sidered worthy of being put into competition 
with Arthur for a moment : * * * * aiid myself 
have often talked together on this point, and 
we have invariably agreed that it was of him 
above all his contemporaries that great and lofty 
expectations were to be formed. I am the more 
anxious to express my strong conviction of his 
superiority, because it seems to me that if he is 
judged by the works which he has left behind 
him, the estimate formed of his powers, how- 
ever high, Avill yet be completely inadequate. 
His poetical genius, to which I principally al- 



PREFACE. 37 

lude, as being the one among his many emi- 
nent gifts of which I can speak with the greatest 
confidence, was of too stately and severe a kind 
to be so soon matured. Intrinsically excellent 
as are many of his compositions, displaying, as 
everything which he has written abundantly 
does, the signs of intellectual power, there was 
yet wanting time and practice and meditation 
to clear away the occasional obscurities and hard- 
nesses of his style, before it would have repre- 
sented the intensity of his feelings and the 
loftiness of his conceptions with adequate har- 
mony and truth. Had he been spared 'to fill,' 
as he himself beautifiilly expresses it, 

/ ' With worth}'- thought and deed 

^ The measure of his high desire ; ' 

had he chosen — which, however, from the tenor 
of his conversation latterly, I do not believe he 
would have done — to concentrate his penius 
upon poetry, any one who will examine can- 
didly what he has left may easily perceive that 
the very highest rank among the Poets of 
thought and philosophy would have been at 
his command. As a critic there was no one 
upon whose taste and judgment I had so great 
a reliance. I never was sure that I thoroughly 



38 PREFACE. 

understood or appreciated any poem till I had 
discussed it with him. As was natural, the 
philosophical tendency of his own mind led him 
usually to prefer the poetry of thought to that 
of action ; and in accordance witJi this prefer- 
ence, Wordsworth, among contemporary writers, 
was, upon the whole, his favorite ; the splendor 
of Shelley's imagery, and the various melody 
of his versification, captivated him for a time, 
but I think that Wordsworth, whose depth and 
calmness was more congenial to the temper of 
his own mind than the turbulent brilliancy of 
Shelley, gradually regained his former ascen- 
dency. He also admired much of Keats, espe- 
cially an Ode to Autumn, and one to the Night- 
ingale ; and entertained, as is, of course, well 
known to you, the highest opinion of his friend 
Alfred Tennyson as a rising poet. But though 
he admired these whom I have mentioned, and 
many others, Dante and Shakspeare were cer- 
tainly the two whom he regarded as the high- 
est and noblest of their class. I have often 
heard him complain that the former was not 
properly appreciated even by his admirers, who 
dwell only on his gloomy power and sublimity, 
without adverting to the peculiar sweetness and 



PREFACE. 39 

tenderness which characterize, as he thought, so 
much of his poetry. Besides Shakspeare, some 
of the old Eno'hsh dramatists were amono; liis 
favorite authors. He has spoken to me witli 
enthusiasm of scenes in Webster and Hey wood, 
and he deho-hted in Fletcher. Massinger, I 
think, did not please him so much ; I recollect 
his being surprised at my preferring that dram- 
atist to Fletcher. He used to dwell particularly 
upon the gi'ace of style and harmony of versi- 
fication for which the latter is remarkable. In- 
deed, he was at all times peculiarly sensible of 
this merit, and was perhaps somewhat intolerant 
of the opposite fault, considering metrical harsh- 
ness to indicate a defect rather in the soul than 
the ear of tlie poet. Of Milton he always spoke 
with due reverence ; but I do not believe that he 
recurred to him with so much delight or rated him 
quite so high as his favorite Dante. Among the 
classical writers ^schylus and Sophocles, partic- 
ularly the former, were those whom he used to 
mention most fi-equently. I do not at present rec- 
ollect whether we ever conversed together about 
Homer ; it is probable that we may have done 
so, but I cannot recall any of his opinions upon 
that subject. The short poems and fragments 



40 PREFACE. 

of Sappho interested him greatly ; and I have 
heard him repeat frequently and dwell with deep 
feeling upon tliose beautiful and mournful lines of 
Bion, which begin at at rat /xaAa^ai. I do not think 
that either Euripides or Pindar were favorites 
in general, though he possessed too discriminat- 
ing a taste, and too sincere an appreciation of 
what is beautiful wherever it existed, not to 
acknowledge and feel their many excellences. 
Of the Latin poets my impression is that he 
did not value any very highly, with the excep- 
tion of Lucretius, and perhaps Catullus. Much 
of Yirgil he undoubtedly admired, but I do not 
think that his own taste would have led him to 
place that poet in the prominent rank to which 
he has been elevated by general opinion. 

" I have thus, my dear Mr. H , endea- 
vored to comply with your request ; I have, 
endeavored to place before you, as shortly and 
as clearly as I can, what I believe to have been 
the opinions entertained by the dearest and most 
valued of all my early friends upon that branch 
of literature which usually formed the subject 
of our conversations. I am ashamed of the 
slovenliness and insufficiency of the sketch which 
I venture to send to you, but it is all that I 



PREFACE. 41 

can ftinilsli. Happily, however, for his flime — 
happily for your own feelings of proud though 
melancholy affection — his reputation is not left 
to depend upon the scanty reminiscences of one 
or two youthfiil friends : the memorials which he 
has bequeathed to us of his mental powders, to- 
gether with the unanimous consent of all who 
had an opportunity of knowing and appreciating 
him as he deserved, are amply sufficient to 
secure to him that to which he is entitled — 
the sincere and lasting regret of all good men 
that such a mind should have been removed 
from amono' us at a time when the light of his 
matured genius, and the excellence of his moral 
nature, might have exercised so great and so 
beneficial an influence upon the happiness of 
mankind." 

Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree 
in January, 1832. He resided from that time 
with the Editor in London, having: been entered 
on the boards of the Inner Temple. It was 
greatly the desire of the Editor that he should 
engage himself in the study of the law ; not 
merely with professional views, but as a usefril 
discipline for a mind too much occupied with 



42 PREFACE. 

habits of thought, which, ennobhng and impor- 
tant as they were, could not but separate him 
from the e very-day business of Hfe, and might, 
by their excess, in his susceptible temperament, 
be productive of considerable mischief. He had 
during the previous long vacation read with the 
Editor the Institutes of Justinian, and the two 
works of Heineccius which illustrate them ; and 
he now went through Blackstone's Commen- 
taries, with as much of other law books, as in 
the Editor's judgment was required for a simi- 
lar purpose. It was satisfactory at that time 
to perceive that, far from showing any of that 
distaste to legal studies which might have been 
anticipated from some parts of his intellectual 
character, he entered upon them not only with 
great acuteness but considerable interest. In the 
month of October, 1832, he began to see the 
practical application of legal knowledge in the 
office of an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Walters, 
of Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he con- 
tinued till his departure from England in the 
following summer. 

It was not, however, to be expected, or even 
desired, by any who knew how to value him. 



PREFACE. 43 

that he should at once abandon tliose habits of 
study which had fertilized and invigorated his 
mind. But he now, from some change or other 
in his course of thinking, ceased in a great 
measure to write poetry, and expressed to more 
than one friend an intention to give it up. The 
instances after his leavino; Cambrido^e were few. 
The dramatic scene between Kaffaelle and 
Fiammetta, which occurs in p. 151, was written 
in 1832 ; and about the same time he had a de- 
sign to translate the " Vita Nuova " of his favor- 
ite Dante, a work which he justly prized as the 
development of that immense genius in a kind 
of autobiography which best prepares us for a 
real insight into the Divine Comedy. He ren- 
dered accordingly into verse most of the sonnets 
which the " Vita Nuova" contains ; but the Edi- 
tor does not believe that he made any progress in 
the prose translation. These sonnets appearing 
rather too literal, and consequently harsh, it has 
not been thought worth while to print. 

In the summer of 1832 the appearance of 
Professor Rossetti's " Disquisizioni sullo Spirito 
Antipapale," in which the writings of Arthur's 
beloved masters, Dante and Petrarch, as Avell as 



44 PREFACE. 

most of the mediaeval literature of Italy, were 
treated as a series of enigmas, to be understood 
only by a key that discloses a latent carbonarism 
— a secret conspiracy against the religion of 
their age — excited him to publish his own re- 
marks in reply. It seemed to him the worst 
of poetical heresies to desert the Absolute, the 
Universal, the Eternal, the Beautiful and True, 
which the Platonic spirit of his literary creed 
taught him to seek in all the higher works of 
genius, in quest of some temporary historical 
allusion which could be of no interest with 
posterity. Nothing, however, could be more 
alien from his courteous disposition than to 
abuse the license of controversy, or to treat 
with intentional disrespect a very ingenious per- 
son, who had been led on too far in pursuing 
a course of interpretation which, within certain 
much narrower limits, it is impossible for any 
one conversant with history not to admit. 

A very few other anonymous writings occu- 
pied his leisure about this time. Among these 
were slight memoirs of Petrarch, Voltaire, and 
Burke, for the " Gallery of Portraits," published 
by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 



PREFACE. 45 

Knowledge. His time was, however, princi- 
pally devoted, when not engaged at his office, 
to metaphysical researches and to the history 
of philosophical opinions. 

From the latter part of his residence at Cam- 
bridge, a gradual but very perceptible improve- 
ment in the cheeiiiilness of his spirits gladdened 
his family and his friends ; intervals there doubt- 
less were, when the continual seriousness of his 
habits of thought, or the force of circumstances, 
threw something more of gravity into his de- 
meanor; but, in general, he was animated and 
even gay; renewing or preserving his inter- 
course with some of those he had most valued 
at Eton and Cambridge. The symptoms of de- 
ran oed circulation which had manifested them- 
selves before, ceased to appear, or, at least, so 
as to excite his own attention ; and though it 
struck those who were most anxious in watch- 
ing him, that his power of enduring fatigue was 
not quite so great as from his frame of body 
and apparent robustness might have been an- 
ticipated, nothing gave the least indication of 
danger, either to their eyes, or to those of the 
medical practitioners who were in the habit ot 



46 PREFACE. 

observing him. An attack of intermitting fever 
during the prevalent influenza of the spring of 
1833, may, perhaps, have disposed his constitu- 
tion to the last fatal blow. The Editor cannot 
dwell on anything later. 

Arthur accompanied him into Germany in the 
beginning of August. In returning to Vienna 
from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an 
intermittent fever, with very slight symptoms, 
and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush 
of blood to the head put an instantaneous end 
to his life, on the 15th of September, 1833. 
The mysteriousness of such a dreadful termi- 
nation to a disorder generally of so little im- 
portance, and, in this instance, of the slightest 
kind, has been diminished by an examination 
which showed a weakness of the cerebral ves- 
sels, and a want of sufficient energy in the 
heart. Those whose eyes must long be dim 
with tears, and whose hopes on this side the 
tomb are broken down forever, may cling, as 
well as they can, to the poor consolation of 
believing, that a few more years would, in the 
usual chances of humanity, have severed the 



PREFACE. 47 

frail union of his graceful and manly form, 
with the pure spirit that it enshrined. 

The remains of Arthur were brought to 
England, and interred on the 3d of January, 
1834, in the Chancel of Clevedon Church, in 
Somersetshire, belonging to his maternal grand- 
father. Sir Abraham Elton ; a place selected by 
the Editor, not only from the connection of 
kindred, but on account of its still and seques- 
tered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs 
the Bristol Channel. 

More ought, perhaps, to be said; but it is 
very difficult to proceed. From the earhest 
years of this extraordinary young man, his 
premature abilities were not more conspicuous 
than an almost faultless disposition, sustained 
by a more calm self-command than has often 
been witnessed in that season of life. The 
sweetness of temper that distinguished his 
childhood, became, with the advance of man- 
hood, an habitual benevolence, and ultimately 
ripened into that exalted principle of love to- 
wards God and man, which animated and al- 
most absorbed his soul dm'ing the latter period 
of his life, and to which most of the follow- 



48 PREFACE. 

ing compositions bear such emphatic testimony. 
He seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from 
some better world ; and in bowing to the mys- 
terious will which has in mercy removed him, 
perfected by so short a trial, and passing over 
the bridge which separates the seen from the 
imseen life in a moment, and, as Ave believe, 
without a moment's pang, we must feel not 
only the bereavement of those to whom he was 
dear, but the loss which mankind have sustained 
by the withdrawing of such a light. But these 
sentiments are more beautifully expressed in a 
letter which the Editor has received from one 
of Arthur's earliest and most distinguished 
friends, himself just entering upon a career of 
public life, which, if in these times there is any 
field open for high principle and the eloquence 
of wisdom and virtue, will be as brilliant as it 
must, on every condition, be honorable : — 

yci/ot dp curr^ccrrcpos 

TO. 8' oAA,* OfJiOLOS' 

. . . " It was my happiness to live at 
Eton in habits of close intimacy with him ; and 
the sentiments of aflPection which that intimacy 



PREFACE. 49 

produced, were of a kind never to be effaced. 
Painfully mindful as I am of the privileges 
which I then so largely enjoyed, of the ele- 
vating effects derived fi-om intercourse with a 
spirit such as his, of the rapid and continued 
expansion of all his powers, of his rare and 
so far as I have seen unparalleled endowments, 
and of his deep enthusiastic affections both 
religious and human, I have taken upon me 
thus to render my feeble testimony to a mem- 
ory, which will ever be dear to my heart. 
From his and my friend, D., I have learned 
the terrible suddenness of his removal, and see 
with wonder how it has pleased God, that in 
his death as well as in his life and nature, 
he should be marked beyond ordinary men. 
When much time has elapsed, and when most 
bereavements would be forgotten, he will still 
be remembered, and his place I fear will be 
felt to be still vacant, singularly as his mind 
was calculated by its native tendencies to work 
powerfully and for good in an age full of im- 
port to the nature and destinies of man." 

A considerable portion of the poetry contained 
in this volume was printed in the year 1830, and 
4 



50 PREFACE. 

was intended, by the author to be pubhshed to- 
gether with the poems of his intimate friend, 
Mr. Alfred Tennyson. They were, however, 
withheld from publication at the request of the 
Editor. The poem of "Timbuctoo" was written 
for the University Prize in 1829, which it did 
not obtain. Notwithstanding its too great ob- 
scurity, the subject itself being hardly indicated, 
and the extreme hyperbolical importance which 
the author's brilliant fancy has attached to a 
nest of barbarians, no one can avoid admiring 
the grandeur of his conceptions, and the deep 
philosophy upon which he has built the scheme 
of his poem. This is, however, by no means 
the most pleasing of his compositions. It is in 
the profound reflection, the melancholy tender- 
ness, and the religious sanctity of other effu- 
sions, that a lasting charm will be found. A 
commonplace subject, such as those announced 
for academical prizes generally are, was inca- 
pable of exciting a mind, which, beyond almost 
every other, went straight to the frirthest depths 
that the human intellect can fathom, or from 
which human feelings can be drawn. Many 
short poems of equal beauty with those here 
printed have been deemed unfit even for the 



PRE FA CE. 5 1 

limited circulation they might obtain on ac- 
count of their unveiling more of emotion than, 
consistently with what is clue to hun and to 
others, could be exposed to view. 



1884. 



MEMOIR 



OF 



HENRY FITZMAURICE HALLAM. 




UT few months have elapsed smce 
the pages of " In Memoriam " re- 
called to the minds of many, and 
impressed on the hearts of all who 
perused them, the melancholy circumstances at- 
tending the sudden and early death of Arthur 
Henry Hallam, the eldest son of Henry Hal- 
lam, Esq. Not many weeks ago the public 
journals contained a short paragraph announc- 
ing the decease, under circumstances equally 
distressing, and in some points remarkably 
similar, of Henry Fitzmaurice, Mr. Hallam's 
younger and only remaining son. No one of 
the very many who appreciate the sterling 
value of Mr. Hallam's literary labors, and who 
feel a consequent interest in the character of 



54 MEMOIR OF 

those who would have sustamed the emmence 
of an honoraljle name ; no one who was affected 
by the striking and tragic fatahty of two such 
successive bereavements, will deem an apology 
needed for this short and imperfect Memoir. 

Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, the younger son 
of Henry Hallam, Esq., was born on the 31st 
of August, 1824 ; he took his second name 
from his godfather, the Marquis of Lands- 
downe. His health was somewhat delicate 
from infancy, and he displayed no great incli- 
nation for the ordinary games and pleasures of 
boyhood. A habit of reserve, which charac- 
terized him at all periods of life, but which 
was compensated in the eyes of even his first 
companions by a singular sweetness of temper, 
was produced and fostered by the serious 
thoughtfulness ensuing upon early familiarity 
with domestic sorrow. Even in its immatu- 
rity, his mind exhibited the germs of rare 
qualities. His great facility in learning, his 
quick appreciation of principles, and his tena- 
cious memory, were remarked and encouraged 
by his earliest instructors ; and on his enter- 
ing Eton, in 1836, both his masters, and those 
of his schoolfellows who saw mu^h of him. 



HENRY FITZMAURICE HALLAM. 55 

were struck witli the general forwardness of 
his hitellect, as well as the breadth and solid- 
ity with which the foundations of his educa- 
tion had been laid. His literary taste and 
information were uniformly recognized by his 
contemporaries as greatly in advance of their 
own. At the age when most boys are read- 
ing Scott or Byron, he studied Bacon and de- 
lighted in Wordsworth and Dante. Of school 
honors he was remarkably unambitious : a na- 
tive serenity of temperament, and a love of 
literature for its own sake, which he very early 
manifested, may have made him indifferent to 
them ; but at the age of fifteen he entered 
the examination for the Newcastle scholarship, 
and obtamed the medal or second prize, his 
performances indicating an extraordinary ripe- 
ness of thought in the judgment of the ex- 
aminers. Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Gladstone. 
In all probability he would have won the 
scholarship in the following year ; but from 
w^eak health and other causes he never com- 
peted for it again. 

Apart from, his appearances at the debating 
club, where his speeches were already noted 
for ease and clearness, he was not conspicuous 



56 MEMOIR OF 

in what may be called the public life of Eton. 
Although generally respected, it was only by 
a few intimate friends that he was appreciated 
or understood. The impressions of his boyish 
character retained by these more familiar com- 
panions bear a signal resemblance to a large 
part of those which the associates of his later 
life received from intimacy of another kind. 
" He was gentle," writes one of his earliest 
and closest school-friends, " retiring, thoughtful 
to pensiveness, affectionate, without envy or 
jealousy, almost without emulation, impressible, 
but not wanting in moral firmness. No one 
was ever more formed for friendship. In all 
his words and acts he was simple, straightfor- 
ward, true. He was very religious. Keligion 
had a real effect upon his character, and made 
him tranquil about great things, though he was 
so nervous about little things." 

He left Eton at the close of 1841, and in Oc- 
tober, 1842, at the age of eighteen, he com- 
menced his residence, as an undergraduate, at 
Trinity College, Cambridge, on the " side " of 
which the Rev. J. Heath and the Rev. W. 
H. Thompson were then the tutors. From the 
sketch of his boyhood given above, it will be 



HENRY FITZMAUIUCE IIALLAM. $7 

divined that his earnest and energetic mind, 
whicli had always treated the actual school- 
Avork of Eton as slight exercise, while gratify- 
ing its intellectual cravings from other sources, 
would find but little inducement to spend its 
whole vigor in academical studies or m the 
pursuit of academical distmctions. It might al- 
most be said, that he was inclined to under- 
value both the one and the other : certainly 
he was indisposed to make any extraordinary 
eflPorts for university honors ; and he was, at 
that time, too engrossingly occupied with sub- 
jects of more congenial interest, to appre- 
ciate altogether the worth of a scholarlike 
traming. With all his remarkable clearness of 
perception, rapid classification of ideas, and ex- 
cellent memory, it was not till a later period 
that he began practically to value delicate ac- 
curacy of detail as the groundwork of accurate 
induction. Neither at school nor at college chd 
he ever spend upon his classical compositions, 
either in prose or verse, the time or labor re- 
quisite to make them severely correct, elegant, 
or strong : in metrical refinements especially 
he fell below the established standard of Eton- 
ians ; though, at the same time, he translated 



58 MEMOIR OF 

into English most difficult historical or philo- 
sophical passages with great terseness and felic- 
ity of expression. He did not once compete 
for the annual university prizes ; but in all the 
examinations which he underwent in the due 
course of his academical career, his natural 
ability and general attainments secured him 
a high position. In the Trinity examinations 
of June, 1843, he was among the very first 
of his year ; at Easter, 1844, he obtained with 
ease a Trinity scholarship on the first trial : in 
his third year he gained the first prize for an 
English declamation, having selected as his the- 
sis " The Influence of Religion on the various 
forms of Art;" and the oration which, as prize- 
man, he consequently delivered in the college 
hall, though occasionally vague and mystical 
in phraseology, contained abundant proofs both 
of the energy and the extent of his mental 
grasp. He took his degree in January, 1846 ; 
was among the Senior Optimes in the Mathe- 
matical Tripos ; and second Chancellor's Med- 
alist. He distinguished himself (especially for 
the clearness of his metaphysical papers) in 
the fellowship examination of his college in the 
ensuino; October ; and would, no doubt, have 



HENRY FITZMAURICE IIALLAAf. 59 

succeeded, without difficulty, in a second at- 
tempt. For various reasons, however, he never 
reentered the hsts — to the regret, not only of 
his contemporaries, but of many among the 
actual fellows, who had hoped to see a name 
of so much promise associated with their own. 
He finally quitted Cambridge at Christmas, 1846, 
to reside in London, and commence the study 
of the Law. 

During all this time his mind never lay fal- 
low. In the first year of his college-life he 
became the virtual founder of the "Historical" 
debating club, established to encourage a more 
philosophical habit in style, argument, and 
choice of subjects, than was in vogue in the 
somewhat promiscuous theatre of the Union. 
About the same time he entered a smaller 
and more intimate circle, where topics of the 
highest and deepest speculation were discussed 
orally and in writing. To this society he read 
many valuable and suggestive essays, and al- 
ways took a principal share in its debates. 
Fluently and thoughtfully as he wrote, the 
natural and emphatic exponent of his ideas 
was his tongue and not his pen. He spoke 
quietly, earnestly, logically, and convincingly; 



6o MEMOIR OF 

and thougli eager at the time to pursue an 
advantage to the utmost, to confound a fallacy, 
or expose a weak argument, he was so pos- 
sessed with a spirit of candor and tenderness, 
as often afterwards to experience most serious 
uneasiness at the thouo-ht of havino; overstated 
the strength of his own positions, or pressed 
unfairly upon those of his adversary. He rare- 
ly attended the discussions of the Union ; but 
in May, 1845, when the question of an addi- 
tional grant to Maynooth was attracting public 
notice, besides drawing up a very clearly worded 
and argued petition in favor of the measure, he 
spoke on the subject with so much strength, 
grace, fervor, and eloquence, as entirely to en- 
chain the attention and subjugate the sympa- 
thies of an originally adverse audience, habitu- 
ated to the excitements of far less chastened 
oratory. One who was his friend, but at the 
same time a very constant and skilful oppo- 
nent of his views in general debate, observes, 
in describing him, that " he was the neatest 
extempore speaker I ever heard ; his unpre- 
pared remarks were more precisely and ele- 
gantly worded than most men's elaborately 
written compositions. He had, too, a foresight 



HENRY FITZMAURICE HALL AM. 6 1 

and power of anticipation uncommon in sucli 
a youth, which enabled him to leave no sali- 
ent points of attack, and made his arguments 
very difficult to answer. He was always most 
liberal in his concessions to the other side, and 
never committed the fault of claiming too much 
or proving too much. His was not a passion- 
ate oratory that carried his hearers away in a 
whirlwind, but a winning voice that stole away 
their hearts, the ars celare artem^ the perfec- 
tion of persuasiveness." * 

What he might have proved in the ftdl ma-- 
turity of life and intellect may best be con- 
jectured by the tastes and the cast of thought 
which he developed during his final residence 
in London. The professional education he com- 
menced in 1846 exercised, on the Avhole, a very 
beneficial influence upon his mind. The con- 
stant contact with the facts and operations of 
every-day life, into which he was forced by 
his preparation for the bar, concurring, as it 
did, in time, with his permanent restoration to 

* This is taken from an eulogy written with great discrimina- 
tion, and with the warmth of friendship, which has appeared in 
the New York '' Literary World," from the pen of Charles Astor 
Bristed, Esq., of that city, the contemporary of H. F. Hallam &.*■ 
frmity College. 



62 MEMOIR OF 

the sphere of his family, had the effect of 
completely correcting an undue preference for 
departments of study remote from popular in- 
terest which he had occasionally manifested at 
Cambridge. In certain favorite fields of inves- 
tigation his curiosity had been apt to fasten 
most tenaciously, though by no means exclu- 
sively, on the obscure recesses which were 
chiefly remarkable for their disconnection from 
common associations. But, fi'om the time of 
his leaving the University, he devoted his lei- 
sure hours almost entirely to the sciences 
which embrace the mechanism and growth of 
society. The study of English history he be- 
gan upon a scale so vast, that the fi'iend to 
whom he confided his desio-n found it difficult 
to believe him serious. But within a few 
months of his death he was followino^ out the 
plan he had formed with a patient elaborate- 
ness and attention to detail, which proved his 
sincerity, while it indicated an important im- 
provement in the method of his intellectual 
exercises. About the same period he applied 
himself diligently to political economy, and be- 
stowed much time latterly on the difiicult prob- 



HENRY FITZMAURICE HALL AM. 63 
lems which are furnished hy the phenomena of 
cui-rency and exchange. 

It may here be added, that in the several 
tours which he had taken with his ftimily on 
the Continent, as well as by other means, he 
had acquired a considerable acquaintance with 
modern languages and hterature. He spoke 
French fluently and with a good accent, and 
could converse in Italian and German. 

He was called to the bar in Trinity Term, 
1850, and became a member of the Midland 
Circuit in the summer. Immediately after- 
wards he joined his fiimily in a tour on the Con- 
tinent. They had spent the early part of the 
autumn at Rome, and were returning north- 
wards when he was attacked by a sudden and 
severe illness, affecting the vital powers, and 
accompanied by enfeebled circulation and gen- 
eral prostration of strength. He was able, 
with difficulty, to reach Siena, where he sank 
rapidly through exhaustion, and expired on Fri- 
day, October 25. It is to be hoped that he 
did not experience any great or active suffer- 
ing. He was conscious nearly to the last, and 
met his early death (of which his presenti- 
ments, for several years, had been frequent 



64 MEMOIR OF 

and very singular) with calmness and forti- 
tude. There is reason to apprehend, from 
medical examination, that his life would not 
have been of very long duration, even had 
this unhappy illness not occurred. But for 
some years past his health had been appar- 
ently much improved ; and secured as it 
seemed to be by his unintermitted temperance 
and by a carefulness in regimen which his early 
feebleness of constitution had rendered habit- 
ual, those to whom he was nearest and dear- 
est had, in great measure, ceased to regard 
him with anxiety. His remains were brought 
to England,' and he was interred, on Decem- 
ber 23d, in Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, 
by the side of his brother, his sister, and his 
mother. 

His temper was cheerful and even. The 
reserve which has been before ascribed to him, 
belono;ed to his manner rather than his mind : 
it was bred by his habits and the circumstan- 
ces of his life, and betrayed nothing like cold- 
ness or selfishness. Among intimate friends his 
conversation was critical, though rarely sarcas- 
tic ; full of a quiet but penetrating and most 
various humor : revealino; an inclination to- 



HENRY FITZMAURICE HALL AM. 65 

wards fanciful and even paradoxical tastes ; 
occasionally scintillating with the purest wit. 
His diction was fluent and ready, abounding 
in felicities of idiom and phrase. In poetry his 
preferences were for depth, tenderness, and 
solemnity, rather than for brilliancy or pas- 
sion ; he was, however, exceedingly fond of 
the older English dramatists, frequently read- 
ing their works aloud, and dehghting his hear- 
ers by his musical voice and graceful dehvery. 
In painting he was attracted by all beautiful 
forms, but derived especial pleasure from the 
expression, through Art, of religious feeling. 
He was extremely quick to appreciate excel- 
lence of all kinds ; particularly in accomplish- 
ments in which, during his boyhood, he had 
felt his own deficiency, — as, for instance, in 
athletic exercises. For continuous and sus- 
tained thought he had an extraordinary capac- 
ity, the bias of his mind being decidedly 
towards analytical processes, — a characteristic 
which was illustrated at Cambridge by his uni- 
form partiality for analysis, and comparative 
distaste for the geometrical method, in his 
mathematical studies. His early proneness to 
dwell upon the more recondite departments 
5 



66 MEMOIR OF 

of each science and branch of inquiry has 
been alKided to above. It is not to be infer- 
red that, as a consequence of this tendency, 
he Winded himself at any period of his hfe to 
the necessity and the duty of practical exer- 
tion. He was always eager to act as well as 
speculate ; and, in this repect, his character 
preserved an unbroken consistency and har- 
mony, from the epoch when, on commencing 
his residence at Cambridge, he voluntarily be- 
came a teacher in a parish Sunday-school for 
the sake of applying his theories of religious 
education, to the time when, on the point of 
setting forth on his last fatal journey, he 
framed a plan of obtaining access, in the en- 
suing winter, to a large commercial establish- 
ment, in the view of familiarizing himself with 
the actual course and minute detail of mer- 
cantile transactions. 

He was full of kindness to his dependents ; 
very charitable ; generous to profusion where 
his sympathies were strongly engaged. In gen- 
eral society he was markedly courteous, and, 
though far from undemonstrative., he never 
gave offence : one has seldom been found 
who, with such strong opinions, ruffled so few 



HENRY FITZMAURICE HALL AM. 67 

susceptibilities. Insensibly and unconsciously, 
he had made himself a large number of friends 
and admirers in the last few years of his life. 
The painful impression created by his death in 
the circle in which he habitually moved, and 
even beyond it, was exceedingly remarkable 
both for its depth and its extent. For those 
united with him in a companionship more than 
ordinarily close, his friendsliip had taken such 
a character as to have almost become a neces- 
sity of existence. But it was upon his family 
that he lavished all the w^ealth of his disposi- 
tion, — affection without stint, gentleness never 
once at fault, considerateness reaching to self- 
sacrifice. 

Such is a faint outline of Henry Fitzmau- 
rice Hallam. It is idle to speculate on the 
position which he might hereafter have taken 
in public life : for very different reasons, it is 
needless to speak of the influence which his 
memory will continue to exert upon all who 
knew him well. The fi'iends of his Eton and 
Cambridge career will number their acquaint- 
ance with him amono; their most cherished 
reminiscences. JNIany among them will feel 
the imperfections of this hasty memoir, the 



68 HENRY FirZMAURlCE HALLAM. 

want of liappy and characteristic touches in 
the vain attempt to recall fully the features of 
the dead : — 

" Di cio si biasmi il debole intelletto 
E' r parlar nostro, die non ha valore 
Di ritrar tutte cio che dice amore." 

H. S. M. 
F. L. 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 



IN BLANK VERSE. 




Y bosom friend, 'tis long since we have 

looked 
Upon each other's face ; and God may will 
It shall be longer, ere we meet again. 
Awhile it seemed most strange unto my heart 
That I should mourn, and thou not nigh to cheer; 
That I should shrink 'mid perils, and thy spii'it 
Far away, far, powerless to brave them with me. 
Now am I used to wear a lonesome heart 
About me ; now the agencies of ill 
Have so oppressed my inward, absolute self, 
That feelings shared, and fully answered, scarce 
Would seem my own. Like a 

di-eam 
Is parted from me that strong sense of love. 
Which, as one indivisible glory, lay 



bright, singular 



70 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

On both our souls, and dwelt in us, so far 

As we did dwell in it. A mighty presence ! 

Almighty, had our wills but been confii-med 

In consciousness of their immortal strength 

Given by that inconceivable Avill eterne 

For a pure birthright, when the blank of things 

First owned a motive power that was not God. 

But thou — thy brow has ta'en no brand of grief, 

Thine eyes look cheerful, ' even as when we stood 

By Arno, talkmg of the maid we loved. 

In sooth I envy thee ; thou seemest pure : 

But I am seared: He in whom lies the world 

Is coiled round the fibres of my heart, 

And with his serpentine, thought-withering gaze 

Doth fascinate the sovran rational eye. 

There is another world : and some have deemed 

It is a world of music, and of light. 

And human voices, and delightful forms. 

Where the material shall no more be cursed 

By dominance of evil, but become 

A beauteous evolution of pure spirit. 

Opposite, but not warring, rather yielding 

New grace, and evidence of liberty. 

Oh, may we recognize each other there. 

My bosom friend ! May we cleave to each other 

And love once more together! Pray for me, 

That such may be the glory of our end. 



MEDITATIVE FUAGMENTS, 71 



II. 

A VALLEY — and a stream of purest white 
Trailing its serpent form within the breast 
Of that embracing dale — three sinuous hills 
Imminent in cidm beauty, and trees thereon, 
Crest above crest, uprising to the noon, 
Which dallies with their topmost tracery, 
Like an old playmate, whose soft welcomings 
Have less of ardor, because more of custom. 
It is an English Scene : and yet methinks 
Did not yon cottage dim with azure curls 
Of vapor the bright air, and that neat fence 
Gird in the comfort of its quiet walls. 
Or did not yon gay troop of carollers 
Press on the passing breeze a native rhyme, 
I might have deemed me in a foreign land. 
For, as I gaze, old visions of delight. 
That died with th' hour their parent, are reflected 
From the mysterious mirror of the mind, 
IMuigling their forms with these, which I behold. 
Nay, the old feelings in their several states 
Come up before me, and entwine with these 
Of younger birth in strangest unity. 



72 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

And yet who bade them forth? Who spake to 

Thne, 
That he should strike the fetters from his slaves ? 
Or hath he none ? Is the drear prison-house 
To which, 'twould seem, our s^^iritual acts 
Pass one by one, a phantom — a dim mist 
Enveloping our sphere of agency ? 
A guess, which we do hold for certainty? 
^ I do but mock me with these questionings. 
Dark, dark, yea, "irrecoverably dark," 
Is the soul's eye: yet how it strives and battles 
Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix 
That master light, the secret truth of things, 
Which is the body of the infinite God. 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 73 



III. 

JJEEP firmament, which art a voice of God, 
Speak in tliy mystic accents, speak yet once : 
For thou hast spoken, and in such clear tone, 
That still the SAveetness murmurs through my soul. 
Speak once again : with ardent orisons 
Oft have I worshipped thee, and still I bow, 
With reverence, and a feehng, like to hope. 
Though something worn in th' heart, by which we 

pray. 
Oh, since I last beheld thee in thy pomp 
Right o'er the Siren city of the south, 
Rude grief and harsher sin have dealt on me 
The malice of their terrible impulses ; 
And in a withering dream my soul has lived 
Far from the love that lieth on thy front. 
As native there ; far from the poesies 
Which are the effluence of thy holy calm. 
Thou too art changed; and that perennial light 
Which there a limitless dominion held. 
In fitful breaks doth shoot along yon mist, 
And trembles at its own dissimilar pureness. 
Yet is thy bondage beautiful ; the clouds 



74 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

Drink beauty from the spirit of thy forms, 
Yea, from the sacred orbits borrow grace, 
To modulate their wayward phantasies. 
But they are trifles : in thyself alone, 
And the suffusion of thy starry light 
FiiTiily abide in their concordant joy, 
Beauty, and music, and primeval love : 
And thence may man learn an imperial truth. 
That duty is the being of the soul, 
And in that form alone can freedom move. 
Such is your mighty language, lights of heaven 
Oh, thrill me with its plenitude of sound. 
Make me to feel, not to talk of, sovranty, 
And harmonize my spirit with my God! 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS, 75 



IV. 

I LAY within a little bowered nook, 

With all green leaves, nothing but green around 

me, 
And through their delicate eomminglings flashed 
The broken light of a sunned waterfall — 
Ah, water of such freshness, that it was 
A marvel and an envy ! There I lay. 
And felt the joy of life for many an hour. 
But when the revel of sensations 
Gave place to meditation and discourse, 
I waywardly began to moralize 
That little theatre with its watery scene 
Into quaint semblances of higher things. 
And first methought that twined foliage 
Each leaf from each how different, yet all stamped 
With common hue of green, and similar form. 
Pictured in little the great human world. 
Sure we are leaves of one harmonious bower. 
Fed by a sap, that never will be scant. 
All-permeating, all-producing mind; 
And in our several parcelHngs of doom 
We but fulfil the beauty of the whole. 



76 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

Oh madness ! if a leaf should dare complain 

Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be 

The gajer, brighter thing that wantons near. 

Then as I looked 

On the pure presence of that tumbling stream, 

Pure amid thwarting stones and staining earth. 

Oh Heaven! methought how hard it were to find 

A human bosom of such stubborn truth, 

Yet tempered so with yielding courtesy. 

Then something rose within my heart to say — 

"Maidenly virtue is the beauteous face 

WL'.h this clear glass gives out so prettily: 

Maidenly virtue born of privacy, 

Lapt in a still conclusion and reserve ; 

Yet, when the envious winter-time is come 

That kills the flaunting blossoms all arow. 

If that perforce her steps must be abroad 

Keeps, like that stream, a queenly havior. 

Free from all taint of that she treads upon ; 

And like those hurrying atoms in their fall, 

A maiden's thoughts may dare the eye of day 

To look upon their sweet sincerity." 

With that I struck into a different strain: — 

"O ye wild atomies, whose headlong life 

Is but an impulse and coaction. 

Whose course hath no beginning, no, nor end ; 

Are ye not weary of your mazed whirls, 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 77 

Your tortuous deviations, and the strife 

Of your oj^posed bubblings ? Are there not 

In you as in all creatures, quiet moods. 

Deep longings for a slumber and a calm ? 

I never saw a bird was on the wing 

But with a homeward joy he seem'd to fly 

As knowing all his toil's o'er-paid reward 

Was with his chirpers in their little nest. 

Pines have I seen on Jura's misty height 

Swinging amid the whirl-blasts of the North, 

And shakmg their old heads with laugh prolonged, 

As if they joyed to share the mighty life 

Of elements — the freedom, and the stir. 

But when the gale was past, and the rent air 

Returned, and the piled clouds rolled out of view, 

How still th' interminable forest then ! 

Soundless, but for the myriad forest-flies. 

That hum a busy little life away 

r th' amplitude of those unstartled glades. 

Why what a rest was there ! But ye, oh ye ! 

Poor aliens from the fixed vicissitudes. 

That ■ alternate throughout created things, 

Mocked with incessantness of motion. 

Where shall ye find or changement or repose ? " 

So spake I in the fondness of my mood. 

But thereat Fancy sounded me a voice 

Bome upward from that sparkling company: 



78 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

"Repinement dwells not with the duteous free. 

We do the Eternal Will ; and in that doing, 

Subject to no seducement or oj^pose, 

We ^owe a privilege, that reasoning man 

Hath no true touch of." At that reproof the tears 

Flushed to mine eyes ; and I arose, and walked 

With a more earnest and reverent heart 

Forth to the world, which God had made so fair, 

Mired now with trails of error and of sin. 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 79 



WRITTEN IN VIEW OF BEN LOMOND. 

Mountain austere, and full of kinglihood ! 

Forgive me if a child of later earth, 

I come to bid thee hail. My days are brief 

And like the mould that crumbles on thy verge 

A minute's blast may shake me into dust; 

But thou art of the things that never fail. 

Before the mystic garden, and the fruit 

Sung by that Shepherd-Ruler vision-blest, 

Thou wert ; and from thy speculative height 

Beheld'st the fonns of other living souls. 

Oh, if thy dread original were not sunk 

r th' mystery of universal birth. 

What joy to know thy tale of mammoths huge, 

And formings rare of the material prime. 

And terrible craters, cold a cycle since ! 

To know if then, as now, thy base was laved 

With moss-dark waters of a placid lake ; 

If then, as now. 

In the clear sunlight of thy verdant sides 

Spare islets of uncertain shadow lay. 



8o MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 



VI. 

JLT is a tiling of trial to the heart, 

Of trial and of painful wonderment, 

To walk within a dear companion's voice 

And hear him speak light words of one we hold 

In the same compass of undoubting love. 

" How is it that his presence being one, 

His language one, his customs uniform. 

He bears not the like honor in the thought 

Of this my friend, which he hath borne in mine. 

It minds me of that famous Ai^ab tale 

(First to expand the struggling notions 

Of my child brain) in which the bold poor man 

Was checked for lack of ' Open sesame.' 

Seems it my comrade standeth at the door 

Of that rich treasure-house, my lover's heart, 

Trying with keys untrue the rebel wards. 

And all for lack of one unsounded word 

To open out the sympathetic mind." 

Thus might a thoughtful man be eloquent, 

To whom that cross had chanced : yet not such 

The color, though the nature was the same. 

Of the plain fact which won me to this muse. 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 8 I 

One mom, while in * * * I sojourned, 
That winsome Lady sitting by my side, 
Whom still these eyes in every place desire, 
We looked in quiet unison of joy 
On a bright summer scene. Aspiring trees 
Circled us, each in several dignity, 
Yet taking, like a band of senators. 
Most grandeur from their congregated calm. 
Afar between two leafy willow stems 
Visibly flowed the sunlit Clyde : more near 
An infant sister frolicked on the lawn. 
And in sweet accents of a far-off land. 
Native to th' utterer, called upon her nurse 
To help her steps unto us : nor delayed 
Those tones to rouse within our inmost hearts 
Clear images of a delightful j^ast. 
Capri's blue distance, Procida, and the light 
Pillowed on Baise's wave : nor less the range 
Of proud Albano, backed by Puglian snows, 
And the green tract beside the Lateran 
Rose in me, and a mist came o'er my eyes : 
But I spoke freely of these things to her. 
And for awhile we walked 'mid phantom shapes 
In a fair universe of other days. 
That converse passed away, and careless talk, 
As is its use, brought divers fancies up. 
Like bubbles dancing down their rivulet 
6 



82 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

A moment, then dilating into froth. 

At last, a chance-direction being given, 

I spake of Wordsworth, of that lofty mind, 

Enthronized in a little monarchy 

Of hills and waters, where no one thing is 

Lifeless, or pulsing fresh with mountain strength. 

But pays a tribute to his sha^^ing spirit! 

Thereat the Lady laughed — a gentle laugh ; 

For all her moods were gentle : passing sweet 

Are the rebukes of woman's gentleness ! 

But still she laughed, and asked me how long since 

I grew a dreamer, heretofore not wont 

To conjure nothings to a mighty size. 

Or see in Nature more than Nature owns. 

Then taking up the volume, where it lay 

Upon her table, of those hallowed songs, 

I answered not but by their utterance. 

And first the tales of quiet tenderness 

(Sweet votive offerings of a loving life) 

In which the feeling dignifies the fact, 

I read ; then gradual rising as that sprite 

Lidian, by recent fabler sung so well,* 

Clomb the slow column up to Seva's throne, 

I opened to her view his lofty thought 

More and more struggling with its w\alls of clay, 

And on all objects of our double nature, 

* See Southey's " Kehama." 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 83 

Inward, and outward, shedding holier light, 

Till disenthralled at length it soared amain 

In the pure regions of the eternal same, 

Where nothing meets the eye but only God. 

Then spoke I of that intimate belief 

In which he nursed his spirit aquiline, 

How all the moving phantasies of things, 

And all our visual notions, shadow-like, 

Half hide, half show, that All-sustaining One, 

Whose Bibles are the leaves of lowly flowers. 

And the calm strength of mountains ; rippling lakes 

And the irregular howl of stormful seas ; 

Soft slumbering lights of even and of morn, 

And the unfolding of the starlit gloom ; 

But whose chief presence, whose imparted self, 

Is in the silent virtues of the heart, 

The deep, the human heart, which with the high 

Still glorifies the humble, and delights 

To seek in every show a soul of good. 

Pausing from that high stram, I looked to her 

For sympathy, for my full heart was up, 

And I would fain have felt another's breast 

Mix its quick heavings with my own: mdeed 

The lady laughed not now, nor breathed reproach, 

Yet there was cliillness in her calm approve, 

Wliich with my kindled temper suited not. 

Oh ! there is union, and a tie of blood 



84 MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 

With those who sj^eak unto the general mind, 

Poets and sages ! Their high privilege 

Bids them eschew succession's changefulness, 

And, like eternals, equal influence 

Shed on all times and places. I would be 

A poet, were't but for this linked delight, 

This consciousness of noble brotherhood, 

Whose joy no heaj^s of earth can bmy up, 

No worldly venture 'minish or destroy. 

For it is higher, than to be personal ! 

Some minutes passed me by in dubious maze 

Of meditation lingering painfully. 

But then a calm grew on me, and clear faith 

(So clear that I did marvel how before 

I came not to the level of that truth) 

That different halts, in Life's sad pilgrimage. 

With different minstrels chann the journeying soul. 

Not in our early love's idolatry. 

Not in our first ambition's flush of hope. 

Not while the pulse beats high within our veins, 

Fix we our soul in beautiful regrets. 

Or strive to build the philosophic mind. 

But when our feelings coil upon themselves 

At time's rude pressure ; when the heart grows dry, 

And burning with immedicable thirst 

As though a plague-spot seared it, while the brain 

Fevers with co^-itations void of love. 



MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS. 85 

"When this change comes, as come it will to most, 

It is a blessed God-given aid to list 

Some mastei''s voice, speaking from out those depths 

Of reason that do border on the source 

Of pure emotion and of generous act. 

It may be that this motive swayed in me, 

And thinking so that day I prayed that she. 

Whose face, like an unruffled mountain tarn, 

Smiled on me till its innocent joy grew mine. 

Might ne'er experience any change of mood 

So dearly bought by griefs habitual ; 

Much rather, if no softer path be found 

To bring our steps together happily. 

Serve the bright Muses at a separate shrine. 

1820. 



86 TIMBUCTOO. 



TIMBUCTOO. 



Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown; 

It must or we shall rue it; 
We have a vision of our own : 

Ah ! why should we undo it. — Wordsworth. 

1 HERE was a land, which, far from human sight, 

Old Ocean compassed with his numerous waves, 
In the lone West. Tenacious of her right, 

Imagination decked those unknown caves. 
And vacant forests, and clear peaks of ice 

With a transcendent beauty ; that which saves 
From the world's blight our primal sympathies, 

Still in man's heart, as some familiar shrine. 
Feeding the tremulous lamp of love that never dies. 

^Poets have loved that land, and dared to twine 
Round its existence memories of old time, 

When the good reigned; and none in grief did 
pine. 
Sages, and all who owned the might sublime 

To impress their thought upon the face of things, 
And teach a nation's spirit how to climb, 



TlMBUCrOO. 87 

Spake of long-lost Atlantis,* when the springs 
Of clear Ilissus or the Tusculan bower 

Were welcoming the pure rest which Wisdom 
brings 
To her elect, the marvellous calm of power. 

Oft, too, some maiden, garlanding her brow 
With Baian roses, at eve's mystic hour, 

Has gazed on the sun's path, as he sank low, 
r th' awful main, beliind Inarime ; t 

And with clasped hands, and gleaming eye, " Shalt 
thou. 
First-born of light, endure in the flat sea 

Such intermission of thy life mtense ? 
Thou lordly one, is there no home for thee ? " 

A Youth took up the voice : " Thou speedest hence, 
Beautiful orb, but not to death or sleep. 

That feel we ; worlds invisible to sense. 
Whose course is pure, where eyes forget to weep. 

And th' earthly sisterhood of sorrow and love 

* The legend of the lost continent Atlantis is so well known, 
and its derivation from an early knowledge of America seems so 
natural and probable, that, had not this Poem been pretty gener- 
ally censm-ed for its obscurity, I should have thought a note on 
the subject superfluous. In the beautiful opening of the " Tim- 
aeus," Plato has alluded to a form of this legend highl}'^ creditable 
to the Athenians, which will serve to show the notions entertained 
of the extent and relative importance of Atlantis. 

t Inarime, now the Island of Ischia. 



88 TIMBUCTOO. 

Some god putteth asunder, these shall keep 

Thy state imperial now: there shalt thou move 
Fresh hearts with wannth and joyance to rebound, 

By many a musical stream and solemn grove." 
Years lapsed in sUence, and that holy gi'ound 

Was still an Eden, shut from sight ; and few 
Brave souls in its idea solace found. 

In the last days a man arose, who knew* 
That ancient legend from his infancy. 

Yea, visions on that child's emmarvailed view 
Had flashed intuitive science ; and his glee 

Was lofty as his pensiveness, for both 
Wore the bright colors of the thing to be ! 

But when his ^^rinie of life was come, the wrath 

* These lines were suggested to me by the following passage in 
Mr. Coleridge's " Friend." " It cannot be deemed alien fi'om the 
purposes of this disquisition, if we are anxious to attract the at- 
tention of our readers to the importance of this speculative medita- 
tion, even for the worldly interests of mankind ; and to that con- 
currence of nature and historic event with the great revolutionaiy 
movements of individual genius, of which so many instances 
occur in the study of history, how nature (why should we hesitate 
in saying, that which in nature itself is more than nature?) seems 
to come forward in order to meet, to aid, and to reward every idea 
excited by a contemplation of her methods in the spirit of a 
filial care, and with the humility of love." — " Friend," vol. iii. 
p. 190. 

Mr. Coleridge proceeds to illustrate this by the very example of 
Columbus, and quotes some highly beautiful and applicable verses 
of Chiabrera. 



TIMBUCTOO. 89 

Of the cold world fell on liim ; it did thrill 

His inmost self, but never quenched his faith. 
Still to that faith he added search, and still, 

As fevermg with fond love of th' unknown shore, 
From learning's fount he strove his thirst to fill. 

But alway Nature seemed to meet the power 
Of his high mind, to aid, and to reward 

His reverent hope with her sublimest lore. 
Each sentiment that burned ; each falsehood warred 

Against and slain ; each novel truth inwrought — 
What were they but the living lamps that starred 

His transit o'er the tremulous gloom of Thought ? 
More, and now more, their gathered brilliancy 

On the one master notion sending out, 
Which brooded ever o'er the passionate sea 

Of his deep soul ; but ah ! too dimly seen, 
And formless in its own immensity ! 

Last came the joy, when that phantasmal scene 
Lay in full glory round liis outward sense ; 

And who had scorned before in hatred keen 
Refuged their baseness now : for no pretence 

Could wean their souls from awe ; they dared 
not doubt 
That with them walked on earth a spirit intense. 

So others trod his path : and much was wrought 
In the new land that made the angels weep. 

That innocent blood — it was not shed for nought ! 



9^ TIMBUCTOO. 

My God ! it is an hour of dread, when leap, 

Like a fire-fountain, forth the energies 
Of Guilt, and desolate the poor man's sleep. 

Yet not alone for torturing agonies, 
Though meriting most, nor all that storm of Woe 

Wliich did entempest their pure fulgent skies. 
Shall the deep curse of ages cling, and grow 

To the foul names of those who did the de^d, 
The lusters for the gold of Mexico ! 

Mute are th' ancestral voices we did heed, 
The tones of superhuman melody : 

And the " veiled maid " * is vanished, who did 
feed 

* These lines contain an allusion to that magnificent passage in 
Mr. Shelley's " Alastor," where he describes "the spirit of sweet 
human love" descending in vision on the slumbers of the wander- 
ing poet. How far I have a right to transfer " the veiled maid" 
to my own Poem, where she must stand for the embodiment of 
that love for the unseen, that voluntary concentration of our 
vague ideas of the Beauty that ought to be, on some one spot, or 
country yet undiscovered, as in the instances I have chosen, on 
America or the African city; this the critics, if I have any, may 
determine. I shall, however, be content to have trespassed against 
the commandments of Art, if I should have called any one's atten- 
tion to that wonderful Poem, which cannot long remain in its pres- 
ent condition of neglect, but which, when it shall have emerged 
into the light, its inheritance will produce wonder and enthusiastic 
delight in thousands, who will learn as the work, like every per- 
fect one, grows upon them, that the deep harmonies and glorious 
imaginations in which it is clothed, are not more true than the 



TIMBUCTOO. 91 

By converse high the faith of liberty 

In young unwithered heai-ts, and Virtue, and 
Truth, 

great moral idea wliich is its permeating life. The lines alluded 
to are these: — 

*' The Poet wandering on, through Arabic 
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste. 
And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down 
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, 
In joy and exultation held his way 
Till in the vale of Cachmire, far within 
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine 
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, 
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched 
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep 
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet 
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid 
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. 
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul. 
Heard in the calm of thought: its music long, 
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 
His inmost sense suspended in its web 
Of many-colored woof and shifting hues. 
Knowledge and Truth and Virtue were her theme, 
And lofty hopes of divine liberty, 
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 
Herself a Poet. Soon the solemn mood 
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame 
A permeating fire: wild numbers then 
She raised with voice stifled with tremulous sobs 

. Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands 
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp 



92 TIMBUCTOO. 

And every thing that makes us joy to be ! 

Lo ! there hath passed away a glory of Youth 
From this our world ; and all is common now, 

And sense doth tyrannize o'er Love and Ruth. 
What, is Hope dead ? and gaze we her pale l)row. 

Like the cold statues round a Roman's bier, 
Then tearless travel on through tracts of human 
woe ? 

No ! there is one, one ray that lingers here. 
To battle with the world's o'ershadowing form, 

Like the last firefly of a Tuscan year, 
Or dying flashes of a noble storm. 

Beyond the clime of Tripoly, and beyond 
Bahr Abiad, where the lone peaks, unconform 

To other hills, and with rare foHage crowned, 
Hold converse with the Moon, a City stands 

Which yet no mortal guest hath ever found. 
Around it stretch away the level sands 

Lito the silence : pausing in his course. 
The ostrich kens it from his subject lands. 

Here with faint longings and a subdued force 
Once more w^as sought th' ideal aliment 

Strange S3'mphony, and in her branching veins 
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale, 
The beating of her heart was heard to fill 
The pauses of her music, and her breath 
Tumultuously accorded with those fits 
Of intermitted song." 



TIMBUCTOO. 93 

Of Man's most subtle being, the prime source 
Of all his blessings : here might still be blent 

lYliate'er of heavenly beauty in form or sound 
Illumes the Poet's heart with ravishment. 

Thou fairy City, which the desert mound 
Encompasseth, thou alien from the mass 

Of human guilt, I would not wish thee found ! 
Perchance thou art too pure, and dost surpass 

Too far amid tli' Ideas ranged high 
In the Eternal Reason's perfectness. 

To our deject and most embased eye, 
To look unharmed on thy integrity, 

S}'mbol of Love, and Truth, and all that cannot 
die. 
Thy Palaces and pleasure-domes to me 

Are matter of strans-e thouo;ht : for sure thou art 
A splendor in the wild : and aye to thee 

Did visible guardians of the Earth's great heart 
Bring their choice tributes, culled from many a 
mine. 

Diamond, and jasper, porphyry, and the art 
Of figured chrysolite : nor silver shine 

There wanted, nor the mightier power of gold : 
So wert thou reared of gore. City divme ! 

And who are they of blisses manifold, 
That dwell mthin thee ? Spirits of delight, 

It may be spirits whose pure thoughts enfold, 



94 TIMBUCTOO. 

In eminence of Being, all the light 

That interpenetrates this mighty all, 
And doth endure in its own beauty's right. 

And oh ! the vision were majestical 
To them, indeed, of column, and of spire, 

And hanging garden, and hoar waterfall ! 
For we, poor prisoners of this earthy mire, 

See little ; they, the essence and the law 
Robing each other in its peculiar tire. 

Yet moments have been, when in thought I saw 
That city rise upon me from the void, 

Populous with men : and phantasy would draw 
Such portraiture of life, that I have joyed 

In over-measure to behold her work. 
Rich with the myriad charms, by evil unalloyed. 

Methought I saw a nation, which did heark 
To Justice, and to Truth : their ways were strait, 

And the dread shadow. Tyranny, did lurk 
Nowhere about them : not to scorn, or hate 

A living thing was their sweet nature's bond : 
So every soul nioved free in kingly state. 

Suffering they had (nor else were virtue found 
In these our pilgrim spirits) : gently still 

And as from cause external came the wound, 
Not like a gangrene of soul-festering ill, 

To taint the springs of life, and undermine 
The holy strength of their majestic will. 



TIMBUCTOO. 95 

Mcthoiiglit I saw a face whose every line 
Wore the pale cast of Thought;* a good, old man, 

Most eloquent, who spake of things divine. 
Ai'ound him youths were gathered, who did scan 

His countenance so grand and mild ; and drank 
The sweet, sad tones of Wisdom, which outran 

The lifeblood, coursing to the heart, and sank 
Inward from thought to thought, till they abode 

'Mid Being's dim foundations, rank by rank 
With those transcendent truths, arrayed by God 

In linked armor for imtiring fight, 
Whose victory is, where time hath never trod. 

Methought I saw a maiden in the light 
Of beauty musing near an amaranth bower, 

Herself a lordly blossom. Past delight 
Was fused in actual soitow by the power 

Of mightiest Love upon her delicate cheek ; 
And magical was her wailing at that hour. 

For aye with passionate sobs she mingled meek 
Smiles of severe content : as though she raised 

To Him her inmost heart, who shields the weak. 

* These characters are of course purely ideal, and meant to 
show, by way of particular diagram, that right temperament of 
the intellect and the heart which I have assigned to this favored 
nation. I cannot, however, resist the pleasure of declaring, that 
in the composition of the lines "Methought I saw," &c., my 
thoughts dwelt almost involuntarily on those few conversations 
which it is my delight to have held with that " good old man, most 
eloquent,'" Samuel Coleridge. 



96 TIMBUCTOO. 

She wept nor long in solitude : I gazed, 

Till women, and sweet children came, and took 
Her hand, and uttered meaning words, and praised 

The absent one with eyes, which as a book 
Revealed the workings of the heart sincere. 

In sooth, it was a glorious thing to look 
Upon that interchange of smile and tear ! 

But when the mourner turned, in innocent grace 
Lifting that earnest eye and forehead clear, 

Oh then, methought, God triumphed in her face ! 
But these are dreams : though ministrant on good, 

Dreams are they ; and the Night of things their 
place. 
So be it ever ! Ever may the mood 

" In which the affections gently lead us on " * 
Be as thy sphere of visible life. The crowd. 

The turmoil, and the countenances wan 
Of slaves, the Power-inchanted, thou shalt flee. 

And by the gentle heart be seen, and loved 
alone. 

June, 1829. 
* Wordsworth's " Tintern Abbey." 



SONNETS. 97 



SONNETS. 



ALLA STATFA, CH' E A FIRENZE DI LORENZO DUCA D'URBINO, 
SCOLTA DA MIGUEL ANGIOLO. 

JJEH, clii se' tu, ell' ill si superba pietra 
Guardi, e t' accigli, piu che creatura? 
La maesta della fronte alta, e pura, 
L' occliio, cli' appeiia il dure marmo arretra 
L' agevol man, da cui bel velo impetra 
La mossa de pensier profonda, e scura, 
Dicon : " Quest! e Lorenzo, e se pur dura 
Suo nome ancor, questo il Destino spetra" 
Tosca magion — alii vituperio ed onta 
Della nobil citta, che 1' Arno infiora, 
Qual danno fe de vostre palle il suono ! 
Pure innanzi a beltade ira tramonta : 
E Fiorenza, cli' 1 giogo ange, e scolora, 
Dice ammirando, " Oime ! quas' io perdono ! " 

Ro3iE, Dec. 1827. 



98 SONNETS. 



GeNOVA bella, a cui 1' altiera voce* 
Di costanza e virtu feo grande onore, 
Allorche rosseggio quel tristo albore, 

Pien di spaventi, e gridi, e guasto atroce 

E'l fiiime ostil, che mai non mise foce 
Nel dolce suol, che della terra e fiore, 
Piagava si, ma non vincea quel core. 

Or che ti resta ? Or dov' e la feroce 

Antica mente ? E Lei — tra pene, e guai 
L' invitta Liberta — qual rupe or serba ? 

Forse (oh pensier!) qui volge il passo omai, 
E freme, e tace ; o con dolcessa acerba 

Dice, oscurando del bel viso i rai, 

" Com' e caduta la citta superba ! " 

Dec. 1827. 

* Alluding to the Sonnet of Passerini, beginning " Genova 
mia." It is in the " Componimenti Lirici" of Mathias. 



SONNETS. 99 



TO AN ENGLISH LADY. 

("tRA BELLA E BUONA NON SO QUAL FOSSE PIU,") 

Who, not havin,;j: fulfilled her promise to meet me at a Roman festi- 
val, sent me a note requesting pardon. 

A HI vera donna ! or dal tessuto inganno 
Riconosco, chi sei : la gran vaghezza 
Cli' angelica mi j)arve, or fugge, e spezza 

Quel caro laccio di soave affanno. 

Collo, ell' i neri anelli un marmo fanno, 
Trecce, che piu di se 1' anima apprezza, 
E voi, begli occhi di fatal dolcezza, 

Che feci io mai per meritar tal danno ? 
Tu pur, notte spietata, or vieni, e dille 

(Che senza testimon nol crederia) 

Com' io guardava a mille visi, e mille, 
E dicea, sospirando, in fioco suono, 

" Mille non sono, quel cli' una saria " — 
Va, traditrice, e non sperar perdono. 

Rome, Jan. 1828. 



100 SONNETS, 



SORITTE SUL LAGO D'ALBANO. 

feOAVE venticel ch' intorno spiri, 

Or cogli elci scherzando, or siille sponde 
Destando il mormorar di lucid' onde, 

Dell non tardar, non piu frenar tuoi giri. 

Vattene innanzi, e la 've giuso ammiri 
Un fiorellin, clie dall' amena fronde 
Gioia, e dolcezza in ogni seno infonde, 

China le piume, e dille i miei sospiri. 

Quanta invidia ti porto ! In sul bel volto 
Lente isvolazzi, e baci quel natio 

Aureo sorriso, cui veder m' e tolto ! 
Fossi pur teco! Ahi quale tremolio 

Al cor darebbe il trastullarmi avvolto 
Ne' cari lacri, e il susurrar " Sonio ! " 

il/arc/i, 1828. 



SONNETS. 1 01 



ON A LADY SUFFERING SEVERE ILLNESS. 
(imitated from the ENGLISH.) 

XlETA ! Pieta ! gran Dio ! deh, volgi omai 
L'impietosito sguardo: il bel sembiante 
Le luce giovanette, e vaghe, e sante, 

Non mertan, no, sofFiir dell' empio i guai. 

"Mortal, mortal, clie derilando vai," 
Kispose quel del trono sfolgorante, 
" Ye' com' ogni dolor par clie si schiante 

A' puri di gran Fede augusti rai" 

" Alma beata e questa ! E se pur I'ange 
Nel fior degli anni suoi cotanta pena, 
To la sostengo ; e questa man la mena ! " 

Cosi lo spirto umil, cui nulla frange, 
(0 speme di virtu salda, e serena !) 

Beve I'amaro nappo, e mai non piange. 

Rome, Ajml, 1828. 



102 SONNETS. 



ALLA SIRENA, NUME AVITO DI NAPOLI, 
(SCRITTO IN TIROLO.) 

UONNA di gran poter, cli' il colle adorn( 

Molci regina, u' sospirar non lice, 
Fuori cli' ai dolce lai, clie d'ogni intorno 

S'odon neir ombra de' gran vati altrice, 
Dell vieni, oh tu si bella — e senza scorno 

(Pieta per fermo a niuna dea disdice) 
Favellami di lei, ch'il tuo soggiorno 

Par faccia piu ridente, e piu felice. 
Misero, die ragiono ? il suon risponde 

D'Euro ululando tra I'Alpina foglia ; 
Tu pur ti stai lontana — e fai gran senno ; 
Che se'l tuo vol piegassi ad ogni cenno 

Ch' ad or, ad or, man da I'atroce doglia, 
Lungi da lei verresti a torbid' onde ! 



May, 1828. 



SONNETS. J 03 



ON TUE PICTURE OF THE THREE FATES IN THE PALAZZO 
PITTI, AT FLORENCE. 

USUALLY ASCHIBED TO MICHEL ANGIOLO. 

JNONE but a Tuscan hand could fix ye here 

In rigidness of sober coloring. 
Pale are ye, mighty Triad, not with fear. 

But the most awful knowledge, that the spring 
Is in you of all birth, and act, and sense. 

I sorrow to behold ye : pain is blent 
With your aloof and loveless permanence, 

And your high princedom seems a punishment. 
The cunning limner could not personate 

Your blind control, save in th' aspect of grief ; 
So does the thought repugn of sovran fate. 

Let him gaze here who trusts not in the love 

Toward which all being solemnly doth move : 
More this grand sadness tells, than forms of fairest 
Hfe. 



104 SONNETS. 



TO MALEK. 



-IMALEK, the counsel of thine amitj 
I slight not, kindly tendered, but rejoice 
To hear or praise or censure from thy voice 

Both for thy sake, and hers, whose spirit in thee 

Lidwelleth ever, starlike Poesy! 

Woe, if I pass the temple of her choice 
With reckless step, or th' unexpressive joys 

Disdain of fancy, pure to song, and free ! 

Yet deem not thou thy friend of early days 
So lost to high emprize : trust me, his soul 
Sleeps not the dreamless sleep, which thou art 
fearing. 

No ! still on lights the love of noble praise, 
His pilgrim bark, like a clear star appearing : 
And oh, how bright that beam, where storm- 
waves roll ! 



June, 1828. 



SONNETS. 105 



Oh blessing and delight of my young heart, 

Maiden, who was so lovely and so pure, 
I know not in what region now thou art. 

Or whom tliy gentle eyes in joy assure. 
Not the old hills on which we gazed together. 

Not the old faces wliich we both did love, 
Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather, 

Not these, but others now thy fancies move. 
I would I knew thy present hopes and fears. 

All thy companions, with their pleasant talk. 
And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears : 

So, though in body absent, I might walk 
With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood 
Did sanctify mine own to peerless good. 

Ajiril, 1829. 



lo6 SONNETS. 



WRITTEN IN EDINBURGH. 

Jl/VEN thus, methinks, a city reared should be, 
Yea, an imi^erial city, that might hold 

Five times a hundred noble towns in fee, 
And either with their might of Babel old. 

Or the rich Roman pomp of empery 

Might stand compare, highest in arts enroll'd, 

Highest in arms ; brave tenement for the free, 
Who never crouch to thrones, -or sm for gold. 

Thus should her towers be raised — with vicinage 
Of clear bold liills, that curve her very streets, 
As if to vindicate, 'mid choicest seats 

Of art, abiding Nature's majesty. 

And the broad sea beyond, in calm or rage 

Chainless alike, and teaching Liberty. 



SONNETS. 107 



TO AN ADMIRED LADY. 

When thou art dreaming, at the time of night 

That dreams have deepest truth, comes not the 
form 
Of th' ancient poet near thee ? Streams not light 

From his immortal presence, chasing hann 
From thy pure pillow, and each nocturnal sprite 

Freighting with happy fancies to thy soul ? 

Says he not, " Surely, maiden, my control 
Shall be upon thee, for thy soul is dight 
In a most clear majestic tenderness, 

And natural art springs freshly from its deeps." 
Then as he clasps his reverend palms to bless, 

Out from the dark a gentle family leaps, 
Juliet and Imogen, with many a fere. 
Acclaiming all " Welcome, our sister dear ! " 



I08 STANZAS 



STANZAS. 



WRITTEN AFTER VISITING MELROSE ABBEY IN COMPANY 
OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

I. 

_L LIVED an hour in fair Melrose ; 

It was not when "the pale moonlight" 
Its magnifying charm bestows ; 

Yet deem I that I " viewed it right." 
The wind-swept shadows fast careered, 
Like living things that joyed or feared, 
Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, 

And the sweet winding Tweed the distance crowned 
well. 

II. 

I inly laughed to see that scene 

Wear such a countenance of youth. 
Though many an age those hills were green. 

And yonder river glided smooth, 
Ere in these now disjointed walls 
The Mother Church held festivals. 



STANZAS. 109 

And full-voiced anthemings the while 
Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the 
echoing aisle. 

III. 

I coveted that Abbey's doom; 

For if I thought the early flowers^ 
Of our affection may not bloom, 

Like those green hills through countless hours, 
Grant me at least a tardy waning, 
Some pleasure still in age's paining ; 
Though lines and forms must fade away, 
Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay! 



IV. 



But looking toward the grassy mound 
Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie, 

Who, living, quiet never found, 

I straightway learnt a lesson high: 

For there an old man sat serene. 

And well I knew that thoughtful mien 

Of him whose early lyre had thrown 

Over these mould'ring walls the magic of its tone. 



V. 



Then ceased I from my envying state 
And knew that awless intellect 



no STANZAS. 

Hath power upon the ways of fate, 

And works through time and space uncheckt. 
That minstrel of old chivalry 
In the cold grave must come to be, 
But his transmitted thoughts have part 
In the collective mind, and never shall depart. 

VI. 

It was a comfort too to see 

Those dogs that from him ne'er would rove, 
And always eyed him rev'rently 

With glances of depending love. 
They know not of that eminence 
Which marks him to my reasoning sense ; 
They know but that he is a man. 
And still to them is kind, and glads them all he 
can. 

VII. 

And hence their quiet looks confiding, 

Hence grateful instincts seated deep. 
By whose strong bond, were ill betiding, 

They'd risk their own his life to keep. 
What joy to watch in lower creature 
Such dawning of a moral nature, 
And how (the rule of things obey) 
They look to a higher mind to be their law and 
stay ! 

August, 1829. 



STANZAS. 1 1 1 



WRITTEN AT CAUDEBEC IN NORMANDY. 
I. 

TV^HEN life is crazy in my limbs, 

And liope is gone astray, 
And in my soul's December fade 

The love-thoughts of its May, 
One spot of earth is left to me 

Will warm my heart again : 
'Tis Caudebec and Mailleraie 

On the pleasant banks of Seine. 

II. 

The dai'k wood's crownal on the hill, 

The river curving bright, 
The graceful barks that rest, or play. 

Pure creatures of delight, — 
Oh, these are shows by nature given 

To wann old hearts again, 
At Caudebec and Mailleraie 

On the pleasant banks of Seine. 



112 STANZAS. 



III. 



The Tuscan's land, I loved it well, 

And the Switzer's clhne of snow, 
And many a bliss me there befell 

I never more can know; 
But for quiet joy of nature's own 

To warm the heart again, 
Give me Caudebec and Mailleraie 

On the pleasant banks of Seine. 



June, 1829. 



STANZAS, 



A FAR K WELL TO GLENARBAC* 



When jrrlef is felt along the blood, 

And checks the breath with sighs unsought, 
'Tis then that Memory's power is wooed 

To soothe by ancient forms of thought. 
It is not much, yet in that day 

Will see'm a gladsome wakening ; 
And such to me, in joy's decay. 

The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 

II. 

Nor less, when fancies have their bent. 

And eager passion sweeps the mind ; 
'Twill bless to catch a calm content 

From happy moment far behind. 
Oh, it is of a heavenly brood 

That chast'ning recollection ! 
And such to me, in joyous mood. 

The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 

* The Glen of the Roebuck. 
8 



114 STANZAS. 

III. 

I grieve to quit this lime-tree walk, 

The Clyde, the Leven's milder blue 
To lose, yon craigs that nest the hawk 

Will soar no longer in my view. 
Yet of themselves small power to move 

Have they : their light's a borrowed thing 
Won from her eyes, for whom I love 

The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 

IV. 

Oh dear to nature, not in vain 

The mountain winds have breathed on thee ! 
Mild virtues of a noble strain, 

And beauty making pure and free, 
Pass to thee from the silent hills : 

And hence, where'er thy sojourning, 
Thine eye with gentle weeping fills 

At memory of the Roebuck Glen. 



Thou speedest to the sunny shore, 

Where first thy presence on me shone ; 

Alas ! I know not whether more 

These eyes shall claim thee as their own : 

But should a kindly star prevail. 

And should we meet far hence a"fain, 



STANZAS. 115 



How sweet in other lands to liiiil 
The menioiy of the Roebuck Glen. 



Oh, when the thought comes o'er my heart 

Of happy meetings yet to be, 
The very feeling that thou art 

Is deep as that of life to me ; 
Yet should sad instinct in my breast 

Speak true, and darker chance obtain, 
Bless with one tear my final rest. 

One memory from the Roebuck Glen. 



July, 1829. 



Il6 STANZAS. 



WRITTEN ON THE BANKS OF THE TAY. 
I. 

1 SAW a child upon a Highland moor 

Playing with heath-flowers in her gamesome mood, 

And singing snatclies wild of Gaelic lore 

That thrilled liko witch-notes my susceptive blood. 

I sjDake a Southern word, but not the more 

Did she regard or move from where she stood. 

It seemed the business of her life to play 

With euiDhrasies and bluebells day by day. 



Then my first thought was of the joy to grow 
With her, and like her, as a mountain plant, 

That to one spot attached doth bud and blow. 
Then, in the rains of autumn, leaves to vaunt 

Its fragrance to the air, and sinks, till low 
Winter consign it, like a satiate want. 

To the earth's endearment, who will fondly nourish 

The loosed substance, until spring reflourish. 

III. 
"To be thy comrade, and thy brother, maiden. 
To chaunt with thee the antique song I hear : 



STANZAS. 117 

Joying the joy tluit looks not toward its fading, 
The sweet philosopliy of young life's cheer ! 

We sliould be like two bees Avith honey laden, 
Or two blithe butterflies a rose-tree near ! " — 

So I went dreaming how to play a child 

Once more with her who 'side me sang and smiled. 

IV. 

Then a stern knowledge woke along my soul, 
And sudden I was sadly made aware 

That childish joy is now a folded scroll. 

And new ordainments have their several fair : 

Wlien evening lights press the ripe greening knoll, 
True heart will never wish the morning there : 

Where arched boughs enlace the golden light, 

Did ever poet pray for franchised sight. 

V. 

When we were children, we did sigh to reach 
The eminence of a man ; yet in our thought, 

And in the prattled fancies of our speech, 
It was a baby-man we fashioned out ; 

And now that childhood seems the only leech 
For all the heartaches of a rough world caught, 

Sooth is, we wish to be a twofold thing. 

And keep our present self to watch within. 

July, 1829. 



n8 STANZAS, 



ON MY SISTER'S BIRTHDAY. 
WIUTTEN AT CALLANDER, NEAR LOCH KATRINE. 

I. 

jT air fall the clay ! 'TIs thirteen years 

Since on this day was Ellen born : 
And shed the dark world's herald tears 

On such another summer's morn. 
I may not hear her laughter's flow, 

Nor watch the smile upon her face, 
But in my heart I surely know 

There's joy within her dwelling-place. 

II. 

Oh, at the age of fair thirteen 

A birthday is a thing of power : 
The meadows wear a livelier green. 

Be it a time of sun, or shower; 
We scarce believe the robin's note 

Unborrowed from the nightingale, 
And when the sweet long day is out. 

Our dreams take up the merry tale. 



STANZAS. 119 

III. 

That pleasure being innocent, 

With innocence alone accords ; 
The souls that Passion's strife has rent 

Have other thoughts and other words ; 
They cannot bear that meadow's green ; 

Strange grief is in tlie robin's song ; 
And when they hope to shift the scene, 

Their dreams the anguish but prolong. 

IV. 

Oh, pray for them, thou happy child. 

Whose souls are in that silent Avoe ; 
For once, like thee, they gayly smiled. 

And hoped, and feared, and trusted so ! 
Pray for them in thy birthday mood. 

They may not pass that awful bar, 
Wliich separates the early good 

From spirits with themselves at war. 

V. 

Their mind is now on loves grown cold, 
On friendships falling slow away. 

On life lived fast, and heart made old 
Before a single hair was gray. 

Or should they be one thought less sad, 
Their dream is still of thinsrs for<2:one. 



120 STANZAS. 

Sweet scenes that once had made them glad, 
Dim faces seen, and never known. 

VI. 

My own dear sister, thy career 

Is all before thee, thorn and flower ; 
Scarce hast thou known by joy or fear 

The still heart-pride of Friendship's hour : 
And for that awful thing beyond. 

The first affections going forth. 
In books alone thy sighs have owned 

The heaven, and then the hell, on earth. 



But time is rolling onward, love. 

And birthdays are another chase ; 
Ah, when so much few years remove. 

May thy sweet nature hold its place — 
Who would not hope, who would not pray. 

That looks on thy demeanor now ? 
Yet have I seen the slow decay 

Of many souls as pure as thou. 

VIII. 

But there are some whose light endures — 

A sign of wonder, and of joy, 
Which never custom's mist obscures, 



STANZAS. 

Or passion's treacherous gusts destroy. 
God make with them a rest for thee ! 

For thou art turned toward stormy seas, 
And when they call thee like to me, 

Some terrors on my hosoni seize. 

IX. 

Yet why to-day this mournful tone, 

When thou on gladness hast a claim ? 
How ill befits a boding moan 

From one who bears a brother's name ! 
Here fortune, fancifully kind, 

Has led me to a lovely spot. 
Where not a tree or rock I find, 

My sister, that recalls thee not ! 

X. 

Benan is worth a poet's praise ; 

Bold are the cairns of Benvenue ; 
Most beautiful the winding ways 

Where Trosachs open on the view ; 
But other grace Loch Katrme Avears, 

When viewed by me from Ellen's Isle ; 
A magic tint on all appears ; 

It comes from thy remembered smile ! 



122 STANZAS. 



XI. 



'Twas there that Lady of the Lake, 

Moored to yon gnarled tree her boat ; 
And where Fitz James's horn bade wake 

Each mountain echo's lengthened note ; 
'Twas from that slope the maiden heard : 

Sweet tale ! but sweeter far to me, 
From dreamy blendings of that word, 

With all my thoughts and hopes of thee. 



STANZAS. 123 



FROM SCHILLER. 



WRITTEN AT MALVERN. 



I. 

lO yonder vale where shepherds dwell, 
There came with every dawning year, 

Ere^arliest larks their notes did trill, 
A lady wonderful and fair. 

II. 

She was not born within that vale, 

And none from whence she came might know, 
But soon all trace of her did fail. 

Whene'er she turned her, far to go. 

III. 

But blessing was when she was seen : 
All hearts that day were beating high : 

A holy calm was in her mien. 

And queenly glanced her maiden eye. 

IV. 

She brought with her both fruits and flowers 
Were gathered in another clime. 



124 STANZAS. 

Beneath a different sun from ours, 
And in a nature more sublime. 



To each and all a gift she gave, 

And one had fruit, and one had flower 

Nor youth, nor old man with his stave. 
Did homeward go without his dower. 

VI. 

So all her welcome guests were glad — 
But most rejoiced one loving pair, 

"Who took of her the best she had, 
The brightest blooms that ever were ! 



LINES. 125 



LINES 

SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF PYGMALION. 
WKITTEN ON THK OCCASION OF A REPRESENTED CHARADE. 

'TlS done, the work is finished — that last touch 
AVas as a God's ! Lo ! now it stands before me, 
Even as long years ago I dreamed of it, 
Consummate offspring of consummate art ; 
Ideal form itself! Ye Gods, I thank you, 
That I have lived to this : for this thrown off" 
Tlie pleasure of my kind ; for this have toiled 
Days, nights, months, years ; — am not I recom- 
pensed ? 
Who says an artist's life is not a king's? 
I rtm a king, alone among the crowd 
Of busy hearts and looks — apart with nature 
I sit, a God upon the earth, creating 
IMore lovely forms than flesh and blood can equal. 
Jove's workmansliip is perishable clay. 
But mine immortal marble ; when the proudest 
Of our fair city dames is laid i' the dust 
This creature of my soul will still be lovely. 
Let me contemphite thee again. Thtit lip — 



126 LINES. 

How near it wears the crimson ! and that eye — 
How strives it with the marble's vacancy ! 
Methinks if thou wert human, I could love thee ; 
But that thou art not, nor wilt ever be — 
Ne'er know and feel how beautiful thou art. 

God, I am alone then — she hears not — 
And yet how like to life ! Ha — blessed thought, 
Gods have heard prayers ere now, Hear me, bright 

Venus, 
Queen of my dreams, hear from thy throne of light, 
Forgive the pride that made my human heart 
Forget its nature. Let her live and love! 

1 dare not look again — my brain swims round — 
I dream — I dream — even now methought she 

moved — 
If 'tis a dream, how will I curse the dawn 
That wakes me from it ! There — that bend again — 
It is no dream — Oh, speak to me and bless me. 

1832. 



TO TWO SISTERS, 127 



TO TWO SISTERS. 



Love thoughts be rich when canopied with flowers. — Shakspeare. 

In Leigh Hunt's " Indicator," it is stated that the name " Mary" 
has its origin in a Hebrew word, signifying " exalted; " and a 
suggestion occurs in the same book, that " Emily" may possi- 
bly come from some element akin to " Amo." 

Well do your names express ye, sisters dear, 

In small clear sounds awaking mournful thoughts, 

Mournful, as with the refluence of a joy 

Too pure for these sad coasts of human life. 

Methinks had not your happy vernal dawn 

Ever arisen on my trilnced view. 

Those flowing sounds would syllable yourselves 

To my delighted soul, or if not so. 

Yet when I traced their deeper meaning out. 

And fathomed his intent, who in some hour. 

Sweet from the world's young dawn, with breath of 

life 
Endowed them, then your certain forms would come, 
Pale but true visions of my musing eye. 
For thee, oh ! eldest flower, whose precious name 



128 TO TWO SISTERS. 

Would to inspired ears by Cliebar once, 
Or the lone cavern hid fro^ Jezabel, 
Sound as " Exalted " — fitliest therefore borne 
By that mysterious Lady who reposed 
In Egypt far, beyond the impious touch 
Of fell Herodes, or the unquiet looks 
Of men, who knew not Peace to earth was born, — 
There happily reposed, waiting the time- 
When from that dark interminable day 
Should by God's might emerge, and Love sit 

throned, 
And Meekness kiss away the looks of Scorn ; 
Oh Mary ! deem that Virgin looks on thee 
With an especial care ; lean thou on her. 
As the ideal of thy woman's heart ; 
Pray that thy heart be strengthened from above 
To lasting hope, and sovran kindliness ; 
That conquermg smiles and more than conquermg 

tears 
May be thy portion through the ways of life : 
So walk thou on in thy simplicity. 
Following the Virgin Queen for evermore ! 
Thou other name, I turn with deepest awe 
To think of all thou utterest unto me. 
Oh Emily ! how frail must be my speech. 
Weighed with the thought that in my spirit burns, 
To find no rest until 'tis known by thee. 



TO TWO SISTERS. 1 29 

Till our souls see each other face to face. 

Thou hearest not, alas ! thou ai't afar, 

And I am lone as ever, sick and lone 

Roaming the weary desert of my doom 

Where thou art not, altho' all speaks of thee, 

All yearns for thee, my love ; each barren wold 

Would teem with fruitful glory at thy smile. 

But so — 'twas of thy name that I would speak, 

And thus I will not lend me to that lie. 

That from the old and proud ^milian clan 

Thy name was brought, the famous Roman dames 

AYlio, in a sweeping stole, broad-zoned and full, 

With solemn brows and settled eyes severe, 

Tended the household glory of their lords. 

Ah, no ! a sweeter birth, fair name, is thine ! 

Surely some soul born in the tender light 

Of golden suns and deep-starred night divine, 

Feeling *the want of some far gentler word 

Than any speech doth own, to slake the thirst 

Of his impetuous heart, and be at once 

The symbol and rehef of that high love 

Which made him weary and faint even unto death, 

He gathering up the wasted energies 

For a last work, and breathing all his life 

Into a word of love, said " Amelie," 

Meaning " Beloved ; " and then methinks he died, 

And the melodious magic of his voice 



130 TO TWO SISTERS. 

Shrank in its fulness ; but the amorous air 
And the blue sea close murmuring to the shore 
With a sweet regular moan, the orange grove 
Rising from that slope shore in richest shade, 
Blent with the spiked aloe, and cactus mid, 
And rarer growth of the luxuriant palm. 
Lived in that word, and echoed "Emily," 
Tempering the tone with variation sweet. 
Thou seest it, maiden : if the fairest things 
Of this fair world, and breathing deepest love, 
Sang welcome to the name then framed for thee, 
And such as thee, the gentlest of the earth. 
Should I, to whom this tale was w^iispered 
By some kind Muse in hours of silent thought. 
Look on thy face and call thee not "Beloved," 
It were in me unmeasured blasphemy. 
Oh ! envy not thyself thy station high : 
Consent to be " Beloved ; " I ask no more* 
Than to fulfil for thee thy warning name 
And in a perfect loving live and die. 

Nov. 1830. 



131 



1 HIS was mj lay in sad nocturnal hour, 

What time the silence felt a growing sound 

Awful, and winds began among the trees, 

Nov was there starlight in the vaulted sky. 

Now is tlie eyelid of the jocund sun 

Uplifted on the region of this air ; 

And in tlie suljstance of his living light 

I walk enclosed, therefore to matin chaunts 

Of all delighted bu'ds I marry a note 

Of human voice rejoicing unto thee 

Ever-loved, warbling my rapture now, 

As erst to thee I made melodious moan. 

Then I believed thee distant from my heart ; 

Thou liadst not spoken then, I had not heard : 

And I was faint, because I breathed not 

Breath of thy love, wherein alone is life ; 

But at this hour my heart is seen, my prayer 

Answered and crowned with blessing ; I have looked 

Lito tliine eyes which have not turned a^Ty, 

But rested all their lavish light upon me, 

Unutterably sweet, till I became 

Angelic in the strength of tenderness, 

And met thy soul down-looking into mine 



132 

With a responsive power ; thj word hath passed 

Upon my spirit, and is a light forever, 

High o'er the drifting spray of circumstance. 

Thy word, the plighted word, the word of promise, 

And of all comfort ! In its mighty strength 

I bid thee hail, not as in former days. 

Not as my chosen only, but my bride. 

My very bride, coming to make my house 

A glorious temple ! Be the seal of God 

Upon tliat word until the hour be full! 

Feb. 1831. 



STANZAS, 133 



TO THE LOVED ONE. 



My heart is happy now, beloved, 

Albeit thy form is far away ; 
A joy that will not be removed 

Broods on me like a summer's day. 
Whatever evil Fate may do, 

It cannot change what has been thine ; 
It cannot cast those words anew. 

The gentle words I think divine. 

No touch of time can blight the glance 

That blest with early hope ray love ; 
New years are dark with fearful chance, 

That moment is with God above: 
And never more from me departs 

Of that sweet tune the influence rare, 
When first we looked into our hearts 

And told each other what was there. 

Yes, I am happy, love ; and yet 

Long cherished pain will keep a strife; 



134 STANZAS. 

Sometliing half fear and half regret 
Is lingering at the seat of life. 

But now in seasons of dismay 

What cheering hope from thoughts of thee ! 

And how will earnest fancy stray 

To find its home where thou mayst be ! 

Sometimes I dream thee leaning o'er 

The harp I used to love so well ; 
Again I tremble and adore 

The soul of its delicious swell ; 
Again the very air is dim 

With eddies of harmonious might, 
And all my brain and senses swim 

In a keen madness of delight. 

Sometimes thy pensive form is seen 

On the dear seat beside the fire ; 
There plainest thou with Madelme 

Or Isabella's lone desire. 
He knows thee not, who does not know 

The tender flashing of thine eye 
At some melodious tale of woe, 

And the sweet smile and sweeter sigh. 

How oft in silent moonlight air. 

When the wide earth is full of rest, 



STANZAS. 135 

And all things outward seem more fair 
For the inward spirit less opprest, 

I look for thee, I think thee near, 

Thy tones are thrilling through my soul, 

Thy dark eyes close to mine appear, 
And I am blest beyond control! 

Yet deem not thou my absent state 

Is measured all by amorous moan ; 
Clear-voiced Love hath learned of Fate 

New harmonies of deeper tone. 
All thoughts that in me live and burn, 

The thirst for truth, the sense of power ; 
Freedom's high hope — to thee they turn ; 

I bring them as a precious dower! 

The beauty which those thoughts adore 

Diffused through this perennial frame 
Centres in thee ; I feel it more 

Since thy delivering presence came : 
And with a clearer affluence now 

That mystic spirit fills my heart, 
Wafts me on hope's enthusiast flow. 

And heals with prayer the guilty smart. 

Oh ! best beloved, it were a bliss 
As pure as aught the angels feel, 



136 STANZAS. 

To think in after days of this, 

Should time a strength in me reveal 

To fill with worthy thoughts and deed 
Tlie measure of my high desire ; 

To thee were due the glorious meed, 
Thy smiles had kindled first the fire. 

But if the starry courses give 

No eminence of light to me, 
At least together we may live, 

Together loved and loving be ; 
At least what good my spirit knows 

Shall seek in thee a second birth. 
And in thy gentle soul's repose 

I'll wean me from the things of earth. 

Even now begins that holy life. 

For when I kneel in Christian prayer 
Thy name my own, my promised wife, 

Is blent with mine in fondest care. 
Oh pray for me that both may know 

That inward bridal's high delight. 
And both beyond the grave may go 

Together in the Father's sight. 

Jan. 1831. 



SONNET, 137 



TO MY MOTHER. 

When bmTen doubt like a late-coming snow 

Made an unkind December of my spring, 
That all the pretty flowers did droop for woe, 

And the sweet birds their love no more Avould 
sing; 
Then the remembrance of thy gentle faith, 

Mother beloved, would steal upon my heart ; 
Fond feeling saved me from that utter scathe. 

And from thy hope I could not live apart. 
Now that my mind hath passed from wintry gloom, 

And on the calmed waters once again 
Ascendant Faith circles with silver plume. 

That casts a charmed shade, not now in pain. 
Thou child of Christ, in joy I think of thee, 

And mingle prayers for what we both may be. 

Jan. 1831. 



138 A LOVER'S REPROOF. 



A LOVER'S REPROOF. 



When two complaining spirits mingle, 

Saintly and calm their woes become: 
Alas the grief that bideth single, 

Whose heart is drear, whose lips are dumb! 

My drooping lily, when the tears 
Of morning bow thy tender head, 

Oh scatter them, and have no fears : 
They kill sometimes if cherished. 

Dear Girl, the j>recious gift you gave 

Was of yourself entire and free. 
Why front alone Life's gloomy wave, 

Why fling the brilliant foam to me ? 

Am I the lover of thy mirth, 
■ A trifling thing of sunny days, — 
A soul forbid for want of worth. 

To tread with thee th' unpleasant ways ? 



A LOVER'S REPROOF. 1 39 

No — trust me, love ; if I deliglit 

To mark thy brighter hour of pleasure, 

To deep-eyed Passion's watchful sight 
Thy sadness is a costlier treasure. 

July, 1831. 



140 SONNET. 



A MELANCHOLY thought had laid me low ; 

A thought of self-desertion, and the death 
Of feelings wont with my heart's blood to flow, 

And feed the inner soul with purest breath. 

The idle busy star of daily life, 
Base passions, haughty doubts, and selfish fears, 

Have withered up my being in a strife 
Unkind, and dried the source of human tears. 

One evening I went forth, and stood alone 
With Nature : moon there was not, nor the light 
Of any star in heaven : yet from the sight 

Of that dim nightfall better hope hath given 
Upon my spirit, and from those cedars high 
Solemnly changeless, as the very sky. 

Sejjt. 1830. 



A SCENE IN SUMMER. HI 



A SCENE IN SUMMER. 



Alfred, I would that you behoia me now, 

Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall 

On a quaint bench, which to that structure old 

Winds an accordant curve. Above my head 

Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves 

Seeming received into the blue expanse 

That vaults this summer noon : before me lies 

A lawn of English verdure, smooth and bright. 

Mottled with fainter hues of early hay, 

Whose fragrance, blended with the rose perfume 

From that white flowering bush, invites my sense 

To a delicious madness — and faint thoughts 

Of childish years are borne into my brain 

By unforgotten ardors waking now. 

Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade 

Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown 

Is the prime labor of the pettish winds, 

That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves 

Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies, 



142 A SCENE IN SUMMER. 

And the gay humming things that summer loves, 
Thro' the warm air, or altering the bound 
Where yon elm-shadows in majestic line 
Divide dominion with the abundant light. 

June, 1831. 



SONNETS. 143 



On Poetry, oli rarest spirit of all 

That dwell within the compass of the mind, 
Forsake not him, whom thou of old didst call: 

Still let me seek thy face, and seeking find. 
Some years have gone about since I and thou 

Became acquainted first : we met in woe ; 
Sad w^as my cry for help as it is now ; 

Sad too thy breathed response of music slow ; 

But in that sadness was such essence fine, 
So keen a sense of Life's mysterious name. 

And high conceit of natures more divine, 
That breath and sorrow seemed no more the same. 

Oh let me hear again that sweet reply ! 

More than by loss of thee I cannot die. 

Ju7ie, 1831. 



144 SONNETS, 



Alas I that sometimes even a duteous life, 
If uninspired by love, and love-born joy. 

Grows fevered in the world's unholy strife. 

And sinks destroyed by that it would destroy ! 

Beloved, from the boisterous deeds that fill 
The measure up of this unquiet time. 
The dull monotonies of Faction's chime. 

And irrepressible thoughts foreboding ill, 
I turn to thee as to a heaven apart — 

Oh ! not apart, not distant, near me ever, 

So near my soul that nothing can thee sever ! 
How shall I fear, knowing there is for me 
A city of refuge, builded pleasantly 

Within the silent places of the heart ? 

May, 1831. 



SONNETS. 145 



tVhY throbbest thou, my heart, why thickly 
breathest ? 
I ask no rich and splendid eloquence : 
A few words of the warmest and the sweetest 
Sure thou mayst yield without such coy pre- 
tence : 
Open the chamber where affection's voice, 
For rare occasions is kept close and fine : 
Bid it but say " sweet Emily, be mine," 
So for one boldness thou shalt aye rejoice. 
Fain would I speak when the full music-streams 

Rise from her lips to linger on her face. 
Or like a form floating through Raffaelle's dreams, 
Then fixed by him in everliving grace. 
She sits i' the silent worship of mine eyes. 
Courage, my heart : change thou for words thy 
sighs. 



10 



T46 SONNETS. 



Still here — thou hast not faded from my sight, 
Nor all the music round thee from mine ear: 
Still grace flows from thee to the brightening 
year, 

And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light. 

Still am I free to close my happy eyes, 

And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form. 
That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm. 

And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies ; 

With, Oh ! the blissful knowledge all the while 
That I can lift at will each curved lid, 

And my fair dream most highly realize. 

The time will come, 'tis ushered by my sighs. 
When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid 

True light restore that form, those looks, that smile. 



SONNETS. 147 



T^ADY, I bid tliee to a sunny dome 
Ringing with echoes of Italian song ; 
Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, 

And all the pleasant place is like a home. 

Hark, on the right with full piano tone. 
Old Dante's voice encircles all the air; 
Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare. 

Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. 

Pass thou the lintel freely : without fear 

Feast on the music: I do better know thee. 
Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me 

Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear 
That element whence thou must draw thy life ; — 
An English maiden and an English wife. 



148 SONNETS. 



k^PEED ye, warm hours, along tli' appointed pathj 

Speed, though ye bring but pain, slow pain to 
me ; 
I will not much bemoan your heavy wrath, 

So ye will make my lady glad and free. 
What is't that I must here confined be. 

If she may roam the summer's sweets among. 
See the full-cupped fldwer, the laden tree. 

Hear from deep groves the thousand-voiced song? 
Sometimes in that still chamber will she sit 

Trim ranged with books, and cool with dusky blinds, 
That keep the moon out, there, as seemed fit. 

To sing, or play, or read — what sweet hope finds 
Way to my heart ? perchance some verse of mine — 
Oh happy I ! speed on, ye hours divine ! 



SONNETS. 149 



When gentle fingers cease to touch the string, 
Dear Charles, no music lingers on the lyre ; 

But the sea-shells from everlasting ring 

With the deep murmurs of their home desire ; 

Lean o'er the shell, and 'twill be heard to plain 
Now low, now high, till all thy sense is gone 

Lito the sweetness ; then depart again. 

Still though unheard, flows on that inner moan ; 

Full oft like one of these our human heart 
Secretly murmurs on a loving lay. 
Though not a tone finds any outward way. 

Then trust me, Charles, nor let it cause thee smart. 
That seldom in my songs thy name is seen — 
When most I loved, I most have silent been. 

1831. 



150 SONNETS. 



1 HE garden trees are busy with the shower 
That fell ere sunset; now methinks they talk, 

Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, 
One to another down the grassy walk. 

Hark the laburnum from his ojDening flower 
This cherry-creeper greets in whisper light, 
While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night. 

Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. 

What shall I deem their converse ? would they hail 

The wild gray light that fronts yon massive cloud. 
Or the half bow, rising like pillared fire ? 
Or are they sighing faintly for desire 

That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed, 

And dews about their feet may never fail. 

1831. 



SCENE AT ROME. 151 



SCENE AT ROME. 



Raffaelle sitting in his Studio ; Fiammetta enters. 

R. ijEAREST, I wished for thee a moment gone, 
And lo, upon the wish thou art here. 

F. Perhaps 

It was thy wish that even now as I entered, 
Gleamed through the citron-shadow, like a star-beam, 
One star-l)eam of some high predominant star. 

R. Why, little trifler, whither hast thou been 
That thou return'st so fair fantastical ? 

F. Down by the fountain, where the dark cool alley 
Yields into sudden light of cooler spray. 
It is a noble evening — one to shame thee — 
For the least hue of that all-colored heaven 
Bears a more full and rich divinity 
Than the best touch thy pencil ever gave, — 
Thou smilest at me. 

M. Rather should I sigh 



152 SCENE AT ROME. 

To think that while I learn to love thee better, 
And better prize all that belongs to thee, 
In the fair company I live with always, 
The tempting faces, and warm loving shapes 
That make my little room a paradise, 
Thou wandering about, from lighted fountains, 
From groves at twilight full of changing magic, 
Or yon great gallery picture hung with stars, 
Gatherest contempt for that poor, mimic thing. 
An artist. 

F. Thou believest not thy words, 

Else could I call a thousand witnesses 
To swear me into innocence again. 

R. Where are they ? 

F. Out alas! I had forgot — 

I have them not — I know not where they dwell ; 
They roam in a dim field I may not come to. 
Nor ever see them more ; yet were they once 
Familiar beings, inward to my soul 
As is the lifeblood to the life. 

R. The answer — 

We have the riddle. Who are these unkind ones 
Who knew the thing it is to be beside thee. 
Looked on thy face, yet had the hearts to leave thee ? 

F. Oh there you are mistaken — you are too 
quick — 
They had no eyes and could not see my face — 



SCENE AT ROME. 1^3 

They had no power to stay — they must have left 

me — 
Each in his turn stood on the downcleft edge 
Of a most mighty river, stood and fell, 
Borne to the silent things that are no more. 

a. Are they then dead ? 

i^. Ay, dead ; entombed withm 

A glorious sepulchre, to whose broad space 
The world of present things is but an atom. 
There they lie dead, and here I'd weep for them, 
But that I have a fairy mirror by me 
Shows me their spirits, pale and beautiful 
With a sweet mournful beauty. 

E. Thou art mocking me ; 
These are but fancies thou art speaking of. 

The incorporeal cliildren of the brain. 

F. Aha, brave CEdipus ! my lady Sphinx 

Had stood in danger with thee. Hast thou guessed 

' it? 
These friends once harbored with me, now departed. 
These witnesses to my clear faith and fondness, 
They are all thoughts, all glorious thoughts of thee, 
Infinite in their number, bright as rainbows, 
And in pervading presence visitant 
Whenever I am forced to be alone. 
And losing thee to talk with stars and streams. 
J?. And, by our Lady, 'tis a good exchange. 



154 SCENE AT ROME. 

riie stars and streams are silent — cannot chide 

thee — 
"Will let a foolish woman, talk by the hour 
Her gentle nonsense, and reprove her never, 
Nor with one frown dim their ambrosial smiles ; 
Thou find'st not me so easy. 

F. Still suspicious ! 

What, must I tell thee all this day's employment ; 
Tell how I read the heavens with curious glances, 
And by a sort of wild astrology 
Taught me by a young god, whose name is Love, 
But who before all things resembles thee, 
I tried to shape in those high starry eyes 
The very looks of thine ? 

R. Nay, own Fiammetta, 

K we must needs have such usurping spirits. 
And turn the bright heavens from the things they 

are 
Into poor semblances of earthly creatures. 
They shall be all thine own — take them and wear 

them ; 
Be thou the moon, the sunset, what thou wilt 
'So I behold thee. 

F. I will be the sky! 

No narrower bound than its far unknown limit 
Shall keep me prisoner. Thou hast called me fair — 
Often and often on my lips thou hast sworn it — 



SCENE AT ROME. 155 

Wliat wilt thou say when thou shalt see me come 
To press thee in those blue celestial folds, 
To gaze upon thee with a million eyes, 
Each eye like these, and each a fire of love ? 

R. I would not have thee other than thou art. 
Even in the least complexion of a dimple. 
For all the pictures Pietro Perugin, 
My master, ever painted. And pardon me 
I would not have the heavens anything 
But what they are and were and still shall be, 
Despite thy wish, Fiammetta. 'Tis not well 
To make the eternal Beauty ministrant 
To our frail lives and frailer human loves. 
Three thousand years perhaps before we lived, 
Some Eastern maiden framed thy very wish, 
And loved and died, and in the passionless void 
Vanished forever. Yet this glorious Nature 
Took not a thought of her, but shone above 
The blank she left, as on the place she filled. 
So will it be with us — a dark night waits us — 
Another moment, we must plunge within it — 
Let us not mar the glunpses of pure Beauty, 
Now streaming in like moonlight, with the fears. 
The joys, the hurried thoughts, that rise and fall 
To the hot pulses of a mortal heart. 

F. How now ? Thy voice was wont to speak of 
love : 



15^ SCENE AT ROME. 

I shall not know it, if its language change : 
The clear, low utterance, and angelic tone 
Will lose their music, if they praise not love. 
R. And when I praise it not, or cease to fold 
thee 
Thus in my arms, Fiammetta, may I die 
Unwept, unhonored, barred without the gate 
Of that high temple, where I minister 
With daily ritual of colored lights 
For candelabras, and pure saintly forms 
To image forth the loveliness I serve. 
I did but chide thee that thou minglest ever 
Beauty with beauty, as with perfume perfume : 
Thou canst not love a rosebud for itself, 
But thinkest straight who gave that rose to thee ; 
The leaping fountain minds thee of the music 
We heard together; and the very heaven, 
The illimitable firmament of God, 
Must steal a likeness to a Roman studio 
Ere it can please thee. 

F. I am a poor woman, sir ; 

A woman, poor in all things but her heart. 
And when I cease to love I cease to live. 
You will not cure me of this heresy ; 
Flames would not burn it out, nor sharp rocks 
tear it. 



SCENE AT ROME. 157 

R, I am a merciful Inquisitor ; 
I shall enjoin thee but a gentle penance. 

F. The culprit trusts the judge, and feels no fear 
In liis immediate presence; a rare thing 
In Italy! Proceed. 

R. There was a thing 

Thou askedst me this morning. 

F. I remember — 

To see the picture thou hast kept from me. 
I prithee, let me. 

R. It shall be thy penance 

To find it full of faults, and not one beauty. 

F, Where stands it? 

R. There, behind the canopy. 

A gi'eat Venetian nobleman, esteemed 
For a good judge, they say, by Lionardo, 
Paid me a princely sum but yesterday 
For this poor portrait. 

F. Portrait ? and of whom ? 

Is it a lady? 

R. Yes — a Roman lady — 

About your stature ; and her hair is bound 
With a pearl fillet, even as your own. 
Her eyes are just Fiammetta's ; they are turned 
On a fair youth, who sits beside her, gazing 
As he would drink up all their light in his. 



158 SCENE AT ROME. 

Upon her arm a bracelet: and thereon 

Is graven 

F. Name it! 

R, Raphael Urbinensis. 

F. This kiss — and this — reward thee. Let me 
see it. 

1832. 



ON SYMPATHY. 



Is it necessary to consider sympathy as an ultimate principle, or 
are there grounds for supposing it to be generated by association 
out of primary pleasures and pains ? 






T was my first intention to have 
7^ given you an Essay on a much 
^\0) more copious subject. I wished to 
detail the successive formations of the virtuous 
affections from simple feelings of sympathy, 
and to examine the true nature of the moral 
sentiments. This is much more interesting 
to my mind than the actual subject of the fol- 
lowing Essay, but I began with it, and I had 
not time to get beyond it. The admission of 
sympathy as an ultimate principle would not 
invalidate any subsequent conclusions respecting 
the virtues that arise out of it ; but the contrary 
opinion will perhaps give so clear an impression 
of the great powers of association, as to help 
very considerably the future investigation. And 



l6o ON SYMPATHY. 

in itself I think the question a very curious and 
pleasing one. Before I begin to discuss it, I 
must jjremise that the word sympathy, which 
like most others in moral science has a fluctu- 
ating import, is used in this Essay to denote 
the simple affection of the soul, by which it is 
pleased with another's pleasure and pained with 
another's pain, immediately and for their own 
sakes. 

Let us take the soul at that precise moment 
in which she becomes assured that another soul 
exists. From tones, gestures, and other ob- 
jects of sensation she has inferred that exist- 
ence, according to the simplest rules of associa- 
tion. Some philosophers indeed conceive an 
original instinct by which we infer design, and 
therefore mental existence, from the phenomena 
of animal motion, and the expressions of voice 
and countenance. I have no fondness, I con- 
fess, for these easy limitations of inquiry, these 
instincts, so fashionable in certain schools, and 
I know not why any new principle should be 
invented to account for one of these plainest of 
all the associative processes. Be this as it may, 
the soul, then, has become aware of another 
individual subject, capable of thoughts and feel- 



ON SYMPATHY. j6l 

ings like her own. How does this discovery 
affect her ? It is possible she may feel pleasure 
in the mere knowledge of mere existence in this 
other subject ; since it is probable that pleasure 
is inherent in the exercise of all the soul's capac- 
ities as such, and, therefore, the idea of a new 
similar set of capacities may irresistibly call up 
the idea, and the reality of pleasure. For asso- 
ciation, I need hardly observe, does not only 
produce ideas of what in the past is similar to 
the present, but revives in many cases the feel- 
ings themselves. But as these probabilities are 
rather of a shadowy complexion, let us move a 
step further. The person thus recognized by 
the soul will probably have been occupied in 
acts of kindness towards it, by which indeed its 
attention was first attracted and the recogni- 
tion rendered possible. Before that recogni- 
tion, therefore, pleasure has been associated 
with that person as a mere object. The in- 
fant cannot separate the sensations of nourish- 
ment from the form of his nurse or mother. 
But the expressions of voice and countenance 
in the person conferring this or any other pleas- 
ure were themselves agreeable, and such as in- 
dicate internal pleasm^e in that person. So soon, 
11 



1 62 ON SYMPATHY, 

therefore, as the infant makes the recognition 
we spoke of, that is, assumes a conscious subject 
of those expressions, he is competent to make a 
second assumption, to wit, that the looks and 
tones in the other being, which accompany his 
own pleasure, are accompanied at the same 
time by pleasure in that other. Hence, where- 
ever he perceives the indications of another's 
joy, he is prepared to rejoice, and, by parity of 
reasoning, wherever he perceives indications of 
pain, he is grieved ; because those painful ap- 
pearances have been connected by him with the 
absence of pleasurable sensations to himself, or 
even the positive presence of painful ones. A 
great step is thus gained in the soul's progress. 
She is immediately pleased by another's pleas- 
ure, and pained by another's pain. Close upon 
the experience of pleasure follows desire. As 
the soul in its first development, within the 
sphere of itself, desired the recurrence of that 
object which had gratified it, so now, having 
connected its pleasure with that of another, she 
connects her desire with his desire. So also 
from th4 correspondence of pains will arise a 
correspondence of aversions^ by which I mean 
active dislikes, the opposites of desire. Thus 



ON SYMPATHY. 163 

the machineiy of s}Tnpathy, it might seem, 
would be complete ; and since I have exhib- 
ited a legitimate process, by which the soul 
might arrive at a state precisely answering to 
the definition with which I set ont, you may 
expect perhaps that the argument of this Essay 
is already terminated. Indeed some philoso- 
phers appear to consider this a complete account 
of the matter. But when I reflect on the pecu- 
Har force of sympathy itself, and the equivalent 
strenp'th of those reflex sentiments regardino; it, 
which I shall come presently to examine, I can- 
not but think something more is wanted. It 
seems to me that several processes of association 
operate simultaneously in the same direction, and 
that the united power of all imparts a character 
to this portion of our nature, which each taken 
singly would not be able to produce. Let us 
again consider the soul at the starting-point, 
where it recomiizes a kindred beino-. The dis- 
covery is made, and the soul dwells upon it 
fondly, wishing to justify its own inference, and 
anxiously seeking for means of verification. 
Every new expression of feeling in the other 
being, the object of its contemplation, becomes 
an additional evidence. The more it can dis- 



164 ON SYMPATHY. 

cern of pleasure, the more it becomes confirmed 
in its belief. I have alluded to the probability 
that every new exercise of a new function, every 
change of state, is to the soul an enjoyment. 
Pain may supervene, but in the nature of the 
thing, to feel, to live, is to enjoy. Pleasure, 
therefore, will be the surest sign of life to the 
soul. Hence there is the strongest possible in- 
ducement to be pleased with those marks of 
pleasure in another, wliich justify, as it were, 
the assumed similarity of that other to its own 
nature. Marks of pain, in a less degree, will 
also be proofs. Plow then, I may be asked, does 
it happen we are not pleased with the pain of 
our fellow-being? Because another result of 
association here intervenes. The sudden in- 
terruj)tion of any train of feeling in which the 
mind acquiesces, has a uniform tendency to dis- 
please and shock us. When the perception of 
suflPering in another interferes with our satis- 
faction in contemplating him, and in pursuing 
our process of verification, if I may so call it, 
this contrast produces pain. Besides, as the 
image of his enjoyment recalled images, and 
thereby awoke realities of pleasure in ourselves, 
so the perception of suffering makes us recollect 



ON SYMPATHY. 165 

our own suffering, and causes us to suffer. Tims 
by a second cliain of associated feelings, the 
soul arrives at the same result, at union of joys 
and sorrows, in other words, at sympathy. I 
should remark, however, that compassion is not 
inimixed pain, and the pleasure mingling with 
it may still be legitimately referred to that as- 
surance of life, which the m_arks of suffering 
afford. I shall now proceed to a third princi- 
ple, fi'om which the same result may be de- 
duced. This is the principle of imitation. All 
animals are imitative. To repeat desires, voli- 
tions, actions, is the unquestionable tendency 
of conscious beings. It was a profound remark 
of Bishop Butler, one of those anticipations of 
philosophic minds which are pregnant with 
theories, that perhaps the same simple power 
in the mind which disposes our actions to habit- 
ual courses, may be sufficient to account for the 
phenomena of memory. This is a very deep 
subject; and when we remember that the sphere 
of imitation is not confined to human, or even 
animal exertions, but appears to be coextensive 
with organic life, we have reason to be cautious 
in dealing with this principle. So far, however, 
as it applies to our desires, there seems ground 



J 66 ON SYMPATHY. 

for supposing that the soul may desire another's 
gratification from the same impulse that leads 
a monkey to mimic the gestures of a man. 
Novelty is in itself an evident source of pleas- 
ure. To become something new, to add a 
mode of being to those we have experienced, 
is a temptation alike to the lisping infant in the 
cradle and the old man on the verge of the grave. 
This may partly arise fr'om that essential in- 
herence of pleasure in every state to which I 
have alluded, partly from a pleasure of contrast 
and surprise felt by the soul on gaining a new 
position. Now nothing can be more new than 
such a foreign capacity of enjoyment as the soul 
has here discovered. To become this new thing, 
to imitate, in a word, the discovered agent, no 
less in the internal than the outward elements 
of action, will naturally be the endeavor of fac- 
ulties already accustomed in their own develop- 
ment to numberless courses of imitation. For 
we imitate our previous acts in order to estab- 
lish our very earliest knowledge. Through the 
medium of imitation alone, automatic notions be- 
come voluntary. It is then possible that through 
the desire to feel as another feels, we may come 
to feel so. 



ON SYMPATHY. 167 

I know not whether I have succeeded in stat- 
ing with tolerable clearness these three processes 
by which I conceive the association principle to 
operate in the production of sympathy. The 
number, however, is not yet exhausted, and 
those that remain to be described are perhaps 
more important, and will carry us more to the 
bottom of the matter, although for this very 
reason it will be difficult to avoid some obscu- 
rity in speaking of them. Some of you, per- 
haps, may be disposed to set me down as a 
mystic*, for what I am about to say; just as 
some of you may have despised me as a mechan- 
ist, or a materialist, on account of what I have 
said already. In one and the other, however, 
I proceed upon tangible facts, or upon proba- 
bilities directly issuing out of such facts. It is 
an ultimate fact of consciousness, that the soul 
exists as one subject in various successive states. 
Our belief in this is the foundation of all rea- 
soning. Far back as memory can carry us, or 
far forward as anticipation can travel unre- 
strained, the remembered state in the one case, 
and the imagined one in the other, are forms of 
self With the first dawn of feeling began the 
conception of existence, distinct from that of 



1 68 ON SYMPATHY. 

the moment in which the conception arose : 
hope, desire, apprehension, aversion, soon made 
the soul hve entirely in reference to things non- 
existent. But what were these things ? Pos- 
sible conditions of the soul, — the same undivided 
soul which existed in the conception and desire 
of them. Wide, therefore, as that universe 
might be, which comprehended for the imagi- 
nation all varieties of untried consciousness, it 
was no wider than that self which imagined it. 
Material objects were indeed perceived as ex- 
ternal. But how ? As unknown limits of the 
soul's activity, they were not a part of subjec- 
tive consciousness, they defined, restrained, and 
regulated it. Still the soul attributed itself to 
every consciousness, past or future. At length 
the discovery of another being is made. Another 
being, another subject, conscious, having a world 
of feelings like the soul's own world ! How, 
how can the soul imagine feeling which is not 
its own ? I repeat, she reahzes this conception 
only by considering the other being as a sepa- 
rate part of self, a state of her own consciousness 
existing apart from the present, just as imagined 
states exist in the future. Thus absorbing, if 
I may speak so, this other being into her uni- 



ON SYMPATHY. 169 

versal nature, the soul transfers at once her own 
feehngs and adopts those of the new-comer. It 
is very possible there may be nothing in this 
notion of mine, which I doubt not many of you 
will think too refined. But it seems to deserve 
attentive consideration. The force of it lies in 
a supposed difficulty attending the structure of 
our consciousness ; a difficulty of conceiving any 
existence, except in the way of matter, external 
to the conceiving mind. It may be objected, 
however, that this conjectural explanation is after 
all no explanation, since it can only account for 
an interest taken in the other being, but not for 
a coalition of pleasures or pains. The supposed 
identification is not assuredly closer than that 
which exists between the past and the present 
in ourselves, yet how often does our actual self 
desire dififerent objects from those which allured 
us in a previous condition ! The objection is 
weighty, but let us see what may be said against 
it. The soul, we have seen, exists as one per- 
manent subject of innumerable successive states. 
But not only is there unity of subject, there is 
likewise a tendency to unity of fomi. The order 
of nature is uniform under the sway of invaria- 
ble laws, the same phenomena perpetually recur. 



170 ON SYMPATHY, 

And there is a pre established harmony in mind 
by which it anticipates this uniformity. I do 
not imagine any original princij)le distinct from 
association is necessary to account for this fact. 
But a fact it is, and the foundation of all induc- 
tive judgments. The soul naturally takes a 
great pleasure in this expectation of sameness, 
so perpetually answered, and affording scope for 
the development of all faculties, and all domin- 
ion over surrounding things. Thus a wish for 
complete uniformity will arise wherever a simi- 
larity of any kind is observed. But a still deeper 
feeling is caused by that immediate knowledge 
of the past which is supplied by memory. To 
know a thing as past, and to know it as similar 
to something present, is a source of mingled 
emotions. There is pleasure, in so far as it is a 
revelation of self; but there is pain, in so far that 
it is a divided self, a being at once our own and 
not our own, a portion cut away from what we 
feel, nevertheless, to be single and indivisible. I 
fear these expressions will be thought to border 
on mysticism. Yet I must believe that if any 
one, in the least accustomed to analyze his feel- 
ings, will take the pains to reflect on it, he may 
remember moments in which the burden of this 



ON SYMPATHY. 171 

mystery has lain heavy on him ; in which he has 
felt it miserable to exist, as it were, piece-meal, 
and in the continual flux of a stream ; in which 
he has wondered, as at a new thing, how we can 
be, and have been, and not be that which we 
have been. But the yearnings of the human 
soul for the irrecoverable past are checked by a 
stern knowledge of impossibility. So also in its 
eager rushings towards the fnture, its desire of 
that mysterious something which now is not, but 
which in another minute we shall be, the soul 
is checked by a lesson of experience, which 
teaches her that she cannot carry into that fu- 
ture the actual mode of her existence. But 
were these impossibilities removed, were it con- 
ceivable that the soul in one state should co- 
exist with the soul in another, how impetuous 
would be that desii'e of reunion, which even 
the awful laws of time cannot entirely forbid ! 
The cause you will say is inconceivable. Not 
so ; it is the very case before us. The soul, we 
have seen, contemplates a separate being as a 
separate state of itself, the only being it can 
conceive. But the two exist simultaneously. 
Therefore that impetuous desire arises. There- 
fore, in her anxiety to break down all obstacles, 



172 ON SYMPATHY. 

and to amalgamate two portions of lier divided 
substance, she will hasten to blend emotions and 
desires with those apparent in the kindred spirit. 
I request it may be considered whether these 
two circumstances, to wit, the anticipation of 
uniformity natural to the soul, and the melan- 
choly pleasure occasioned by the idea of time, 
are not sufficient to remove the objection started 
above, and finally, whether this notion of the 
soul's identifying the perceived being with her- 
self may not be thought to have some weight, 
especially when such identification is relied upon 
as a concurrent cause with the others first 
spoken of. 

Before I proceed to examine what consequen- 
ces such a passion as sympathy might be ex- 
pected to have in the mind, and how far those 
consequences, as predicted from a general knowl- 
edge of the workings of association, are in con- 
formity with the actual constitution of our minds, 
it may be well to make one remark as to the 
character of the system I have been explaining. 
That system asserts the absolute disinterested- 
ness of sympathy. It is, as I understand it, no 
modification of the selfish theory. It has, how- 
ever, been so represented, and I must allow 



ON SYMPATHY. 173 

there is a strong prima facie appearance of its 
being so, owing to tlie fallacies of language. 
The selfish theory denies the disinterested na- 
ture of aifection on grounds which prove, if any- 
thing, the absolute impossibility of disinterest- 
edness, at least in any shape conceivable by a 
human intellect. What w^ould be the correct 
inference from such a proof? Simply this, that 
the theorists are using words in a different sense 
from the common, and applying them to a dis- 
tinction which never came in question, not to 
that real and broad distinction which those words 
desio;nate for common understandino-s. But is 
this the inference really drawn by these phil- 
osophers ? No, so it would make no theory. 
Either with a strange inconsistency they make 
use of their principle to depreciate mankind^ 
thus recognizing in fact the possibilitj and nat- 
ui'alness of what they pronounce impossible and 
unnatural, or they employ it to narrow the in- 
terval between vice and virtue and to weaken 
the authority of the moral sentiments. Neither 
of these defects is fairly chargeable on the sys- 
tem I have recommended. What is the true 
distinction, according to common language and 
common feehng, between selfish and miselfish ? 



174 ON SYMPATHY. 

Certainly this : that the object of the first is 
one's own gratification, the object of the second 
is the gratification of another. The difference 
of names arises from the difference of objects 
recognized by the nnderstanding. It relates en- 
tirely to a single act of the soul, taken in and 
by itself, limited by its object, and not at all 
considered in reference to its origin or its con- 
sequence. To require that pleasure should not 
have preceded this act so as to render it pos- 
sible, or that pleasure should not inhere in the 
subjective part of this act so as to cause a sub- 
sequent reflex sentiment, is to require what the 
understanding assuredly never required, when 
it separated the class of selfish from that of 
unselfish sentiments. But I may be told that 
the view I have taken of sympathy, as origi- 
nating in an adoption of the other being into 
self, is quite incompatible with the disinter- 
ested character. If a conscious agent can only 
be imagined as a separate and coexistent part of 
self, is it not obvious all love not only springs 
from, but is in itself a modification of, self- 
love ? For here the object is the same as the 
subject : and though the logical distinction men- 
tioned may be a good justification of the com- 



ON SYMPATHY. 175 

mon use of the words, it is no reason against 
a strict philosopliical acceptation of them at 
proper times and places. Now I cannot object 
to this argument in toto. That is, I admit that 
if the view I took of the origin of sympathy 
was correct, all love is, in one sense, a modifi- 
cation of self-love. Nor do I deny that self- 
love is perhaps as good a term to express this 
meaning as a philosopher could expect to find 
at his disposal. But I deny altogether that this 
philosophical sense of the term has anything to 
do with the usual signification of self-love, or 
with the words interest, disinterested, selfish, 
and the like. Nay, there is another important 
portion of human nature to which some re- 
cent philosophers have wished to confine these 
phrases. Popularly speaking, every feeling is sel- 
fish, or springs from self-love, which regards our 
own gratification as its end. But the philoso- 
phers I allude to wish to remove these words 
to the vacant ofiice of designating, not our 
particular desires and passions seeking their 
own gratification, but that more general desire 
for general well-being which arises out of those 
particular desires, and could not have subsisted 
without their precedence. This is what Hart- 



176 ON SYMPATHY. 

ley calls " rational self-interest " : Butler, if I 
mistake not, " cool self-love," and Mackintosh, 
" desire of happiness." It is easy to prove that 
this passion is not entitled to those lofty pre- 
rogative rights, which in common parlance are 
often attributed to self-love and the desire of 
happiness. When Pascal says " it is to gain 
happiness that a man hangs himself," it is easy 
to show that if by " happiness " he intended 
"the greatest possible well-being," nothing can 
be more absurd and untrue than the assertion. 
We hang ourselves to get rid of present un- 
easiness, not with a view to permanent welfare. 
But it may surely be permitted to doubt whether 
Pascal meant any such nonsense as the refiita- 
tion supposes. However this may be, I think 
I have said enough to show, that in this accep- 
tation of the word self-love, the act of sympa- 
thy has nothing to do with it. Our desire of 
our neighbor's pleasure, our grief for his pain, 
are immediate passions acting upon an imme- 
diate object, and having no reference to the 
means of establishmg an ultimate balance of 
pleasures to ourselves. As to the popular sense, 
I have already shown that the term selfish is 
confined to that class of desires which are not 



ON SYMPATHY. 1 77 

excited by tlie idea of another's gratification. 
The distinction is in the nature of what the 
exciting idea represents, not in the mode of 
its rising, or the reasons of its efficiency. Now, 
although I have supposed it possible that the 
conception of a distinct conscious agent must 
pass through a process of imagination and feel- 
ing before it can be sufficiently realized to have 
any hold upon us, I must not be so misunder- 
stood as to be thought to deny the intellect- 
ual conception itself. It is because the intel- 
lect apprehends another agent, that this process 
may take place, not because it is incapable of 
such apprehension. I hold therefore that the 
notions here laid down concerning the compo- 
sition of sympathy are not liable to the fatal 
accusation of being incompatible with the dis- 
interested character of the affections, in any 
sense at least which can have a bearing upon 
practice. But I think it still a curious specu- 
lative question, whether there is not a species 
of self-love of a very primary formation, an- 
terior indeed to everything in the soul (con- 
sidered as the subject of feelmg) except the 
susceptibility of pleasure and pain. And I 
have my doubts whether the vast concourse 
12 



178 ON SYMPATHY. 

of writers who speak of some such principle 
are fairly open, otherwise than through the 
imperfections and entanglements of language, 
to the impeachment of those modern reform- 
ers, who choose to restrain the words on which 
the debate turns to a different, a limited, though 
I admit an important, part of our nature. 

It was my intention to have continued this 
Essay so as to exhibit the rise and progress of 
those pains and pleasures, aversions and de- 
sires, which arise in the soul in consequence 
of sympathy, and whose peculiar force I should 
have shown to depend on the peculiar powers 
of the several feelings composing sympathy. 
These may be comprised under the terms re- 
morse and moral satisfaction, or any equiva- 
lent, there being no single word. I should 
then have detailed the gradual generation of 
the virtues from the primary feelings of sym- 
pathy, taking for my guide the principle of 
association. I should have shown gratitude, 
resentment, justice, veracity, inevitably result- 
ing from combinations of the primary pleasures 
and pains with their offspring, sympathy, and 
with those reflex sentiments which regard it. 
I should have shown these sentiments over- 



ON SYMPATHY. 1 79 

shadowing the generated affections as they had 
protected the parent one, and acquiring at every 
step additional force and authority. I should 
have attempted to prove that moral approba- 
tion and blame are not applied to agents and 
actions unconnected with ourselves in virtue 
of any faculty of approving or any realist ideas 
of Right and Wrong, but by a simple exten- 
sion of sympathy, strengthened as that pas- 
sion has become by the reaction of all the 
secondary affections, according to the obvious 
nature of association. I should have spoken 
of the self-regarding virtues, temperance, for- 
titude, prudence, and explained how far they 
come under the jurisdiction of the reflex senti- 
ments. Finally, I should have endeavored to 
express how sjonpathy receives its final con- 
summation, and the moral sentiments their 
strongest sanction, from the aid of religion, 
the power which binds over again (rehgare, 
according to some, is the etymology of the 
word) what the bond of nature was unable 
adequately to secure. But these considerations 
I must leave to some other and more favora- 
ble opportunity. 



ORATION 



THE INFLUENCE OF ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION ON THE 
SAME CLASS OF COMPOSITIONS IN ENGLAND. 

Delivered in Trinity College Chapel, 
December 16, 1831. 




'HERE is in tlie human mind a remark- 
able liabit, which leads it to prefer in 
most cases the simple to the composite, 
and to despise a power acquired by combination 
in comparison with one original, and produced 
from unmixed elements. Doubtless some good 
motives have had a share in forming this hab- 
it, but I suspect pride is answerable for nine 
tenths of the formation ; especially when any- 
thing immediately belonging to ourselves is the 
circumstance for which our curiosity requires an 
origin. Wherever we trace a continued series 
of ascending causes, we can hardly escape the 
conviction of our insignificance and entire de- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. l8l 

pendence : but if by any accident the chain is 
broken, if we see darkness beyond a particular 
link, Ave find it easy, and think it fine, to flatter 
ourselves into a belief of having found a begin- 
ning, and the nearer we bring it down to our- 
selves the better satisfied we remain. Traces 
of this prejudice may be observed in every walk 
of intellect : philosophy, as might be expected, 
has been the greatest sufferer ; but criticism, his- 
tory, and the whole province of Belles Lettres, 
have been visite(J in their turn. One of its most 
amusing forms is to be found in those writers, 
less honest than patriotic, who are ready to in- 
vent a world of lies, for the pragmatical purpose 
of showing the aboriginal distinctness of their 
national literature, and its complete indepen- 
dence of the provision of any- other languages. 
They seem to imagine, that if they once prove 
the nations of the earth to have grown, like a 
set of larches, each in its unbending perpen- 
dicular, and never encroaching on the measured 
interval that separates it from its neighbor, they 
have erected " monumentum asre perennius " to 
the character of human society. But widely dif- 
ferent from their fancy is the method of nature. 
Far more sublime is that process by which the 



1 82 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

few original elements of society are dashed and 
mingled with one another, serving forever and 
coalescing within a crucible of incessant opera- 
tion, and producing at each successive point new 
combinations, which again, as simple substances, 
are made subservient to the prospective direction 
of the Great observant Mind. Is it wonderful 
that, for the collection of comforts and luxuries, 
the spirit of commercial enterprise has levelled 
the barriers of countries, and triumphed over the 
immensity of ocean ? And have we no admira- 
tion in reserve for that commerce of mind, which 
has continued as it commenced, without the fore- 
thought or intention of man, silently working, 
but unerringly, abating distances, uniting pe- 
riods, harmonizing the most opposed thoughts, 
bringing the fervid meditations of the East to 
bear upon the rapid reason of the West, the 
stormy Northern temper to give and receive 
alteration from voluptuous languors of the Me- 
ridian ? Surely the consideration of this uni- 
versal and always progressive movement should 
make us examine the component parts of any 
national literature with no exclusive and limited 
feeling (for the literature of a people is the ex- 
pression of its character), and to ascertain, by 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 183 

correct analysis, the number and relative propor- 
tion of its elements ; to decide, by the applica- 
tion of history, from what juncture in social 
progress each particular complexion of sentiment 
has its origin, what is this but to become a spec- 
tator of new scenes in the Providential drama : 
and with what feelings but those of reverence 
and a sense of beauty should their harmonious 
variety be contemplated ? Nor is this pleasure 
the peculiar portion of the speculative and se- 
cluded ; it may be relished by all who have the 
advantage of a liberal education ; it may be 
freshly drawn from the most obvious books, and 
even the common parlance of conversation ; for 
we need only look to the different aspects of 
language to be perpetually reminded of those 
divers influences by which the national charac- 
ter has been modified. I open at hazard a vol- 
ume of Shakspeare, and I take for an instance 
the first passage that occurs : — 

" That man that sits within a monarch's heart 
And ripens in the sunshine of his favor, 
Would he abuse the countenance of the king, 
Alack, what mischiefs might be set abroach 
- In shadow of such greatness ! With you. Lord Bishop, 
It is even so; who hath not heard it spoken, 
How deep you were within the books of God, 



1 84 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

To us the Speaker in his Parliament, 
To us the imagined voice of God himself? 
The very opener and intelligencer 
Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven, 
And our dull workings; oh who shall believe 
But you misuse the reverence of your place, 
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven. 
As a false favorite doth his prince's name, 
In deeds dishonorable?" 

Henry IV., P. II., A. iv., S. 2. 

In these lines (sixteen in number) we shall 
find twenty-two words of Roman formation, and 
but twenty-one (excluding connective words) of 
Teutonic. Of the former, again, five are proper 
to French ; the rest having probably passed 
through the medium of that language, but de- 
rived from a classical source. Among the last, 
one only is Greek ; the others bear the imperial 
stamp of Rome. The whole is a beautiful speci- 
men of pure English, and falls with complete, 
easy, uniform effect on the ear and mind. In 
this instance, and probably in any other we 
should select from the great master, the equi- 
poise of southern and northern phraseology cre- 
ates a natural harmony, a setting of full bass to 
keen treble, to destroy which altogether would 
be one inevitable consequence of altering the 
proportion of these two elements. And is it not 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 185 

a noble thing, that tlie English tongue is, as it 
were, the common focus and point of union to 
which opposite beauties converge ? Is it a trifle 
that we temper energy witt softness, strength 
with flexibility, capaciousness of sound with pli- 
ancy of idiom ? Some, I know, insensible to 
these virtues, and ambitious of I know not what 
unattainable decomposition, prefer to utter fu- 
neral praises over the grave of departed Anglo- 
Saxon, or, starting with convulsive shudder, are 
ready to leap from suiTounding Latinisms into 
the kindred, sympathetic arms of modern Ger- 
man. For myself, I neither share their regret 
nor their terror. Willing at all times to pay filial 
homage to the shades of Hengist and Horsa, and 
to admit they have laid the base of our com- 
pomid language ; or, if you will, have prepared 
the soil from which the chief nutriment of the 
goodly tree, our British oak, must be derived; 
I am yet proud to confess that I look with senti- 
ments more exulting and more reverential to 
the bonds by which the law of the universe has 
fastened me to my distant brethren of the same 
Caucasian race ; to the privileges which I, an 
inhabitant of the gloomy North, share in com- 
mon with climates imparadised in perpetual sum- 



1 86 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

mer, to the universality and efficacy resulting 
from blended intelligence, which, while it en- 
dears in our eyes the land of our fathers as a 
seat of peculiar blessing, tends to elevate and 
expand our thoughts into communion with hu- 
manity at large ; and, in the " sublimer spirit " 
of the poet, to make us feel 

" That God is everywhere — the God who framed 
Mankind to be one mighty family, 
Himself our Father, and the world our home." 

However surely the intercourse of words may 
mdicate a corresponding mixture of sentiment, 
yet these variations of expression are far from 
being a complete measure of the interior changes. 
Man is a great talker, but how small the propor- 
tion of what he says to the ever-shifting condi- 
tion of his mental existence ! It is necessary to 
look abroad, and gather in evidence from events, 
if we would form a reasonable conjecture how 
much we stand indebted to any one country for 
our literary glories, and for that spirit which not 
only produced them, but in some measure, since 
we are Englishmen, circulates through ourselves. 
I propose, therefore, to make a few observations 
on that peculiar combination of thought, which 
resulted from the intercourse of Italian writers 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 1 87 

with our own : first, about the time the House 
of Lancaster began to reign, the period of Chau- 
cer ; and, secondly, at that magnificent era of 
o-enius, when the names of Hooker, Shakspeare, 
and Bacon attest how much, under the auspices 
of the Protestant Queen, was effected for the 
sacred ideas of the good, the beautiful, and the 
true. The first point to be considered is the 
real character of Italian literature ; for we can- 
not measure its effect until we know its capacity. 
That language then, I may observe, a chosen 
vessel of some of the most glorious thoughts with 
which our fi'ail nature has been inspired, was 
the last and most complete among the several 
tongues that arose out of the confiision of north- 
ern barbarians with their captives of the con- 
quered empire. For a long time after that signal 
revolution, the municipal spirit, which kept the 
inhabitants of one town distinct from those of 
another, as regards marriages, social intercourse, 
and the whole train of ordinary life, prevented 
the various patois^ included under the general 
name of Romane, from coalescing into regular 
languages. The mandates of government, the 
decisions of law, the declarations of religion, 
whatever was in its nature more important, and 



1 88 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

was intended to coerce a larger aggregate : these 
were by general custom reserved to Latin, — bar- 
barous indeed, and as inelegant as impure, but 
still Latin in the main, and distinguishable by a 
broad line from the dialects that swarmed in the 
villages. The few wretched attempts at poetry 
that occasionally occur in this period of utter 
darkness, are always in a Latin form ; and the 
fact that this is true even of soldiers' ballads, is 
decisive as to the extreme infantine weakness of 
those forms of speech, which were so soon to 
arise from their illiterate and base condition, to 
express in voices of thunder and music the wants 
and tendencies of a new civihzation, and to ani- 
mate with everlasting vigor the intellect of man- 
kind. At length, however, after five centuries 
of preparatory ignorance, the flame burst from 
beneath the ashes, never again to be overcome. 
About the same time, in different parts of France, 
a distinct, serviceable, and capacious form was 
assumed by the Provencal and Roman Wallon, 
or, as they are usually called, the Langue d'Oc 
and Langue d'Oil. The former especially began 
to offer the phenomenon of a new literature, de- 
pendent for nothing on monastic erudition, but 
fresh from the workings of untaught nature, im- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 189 

pressed with the stamp of existing manners, and 
reacting upon them bj exciting the imagination, 
and directing tlie feehngs of the people. A 
thousand poets sprang up, as at an enchanter's 
call ; the distinctions of rank and Avealth were 
levelled by this more honorable ambition ; many 
Avere the proud feudal barons, who struck the 
minstrel lyre with emulative, often mth trium- 
phant, touch ; nor few were the gallant princes, 
Avho sought in " lou gai saber " the solace of their 
cares, and the refinement of their martial tem- 
pers. Frederic Barbarossa ! Richard of England ! 
These at the head of the list, who could think 
it a disgrace to follow ? After these, it is almost 
idle to reckon up other royal poets, — Alfonso 
and Pedro of Arragon, Frederic of Sicily, the 
King of Thessalonica, the Marquis de Mont- 
ferrat, the Dauphin of Auvergne, the Prince of 
Orange, — all were anxious " de trouver genti- 
ment en vers," and some, we are assured, showed 
their preeminence of merit. In proportion to 
the development of Romane literature, the char- 
acteristics of the romantic spirit became more 
distinct. These may be arranged under four 
classes, constituting the four great elements of 
modern ci\ilization : Christianity, as preserved 



190 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

in Catholicism ; the Teutonic principle, animat- 
ing the Northern countries immediately, the 
Southern less directly, and less forcibly through 
the invasion of the barbarians ; the Roman, of 
which we must say exactly the reverse, that it 
was indigenous to the Southern nations, and dif- 
fused only by military occupation over some Teu- 
tonic tribes ; lastly, the Oriental, derived from 
the Arabians, and circulating especially through 
those provinces of Europe least remote from 
the extensive territories of their splendid domi- 
nation.* Separate as these sources appear, it 
is certain the streams that issued from them had 
a common tendency, so that each seems only to 
strengthen what without it might equally have 
existed. The four moving principles consoli- 
dated their energies in two great results: en- 
thusiasm for individual prowess, and enthu- 
siasm for the female character. Imagination 
clothed these with form, and that form was 
chivalry. The Knight of La Mancha, who 

* I have here taken no notice of the Celtic character, because 
I confess I cannot perceive any palpable results of it in the 
new literature. I am aware, however, that there is a party 
amongst our literati, which professes to support the claims of 
the Celts to a larger portion of influence than is commonly as- 
cribed to them. 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 191 

sought heroes in peasants, and giants in wind- 
mills, was not more deplorably mistaken than 
some modern adventurers, who endeavored to 
fix an historical period, at which the feats of 
knight-errantry may have actually occurred. 
In truth, feudality and chivahy correspond as 
real and ideal. The wild energetic virtues of 
baronial chieftains were purified from their heavy 
alloy, and sublimated into models of courteous 
valor, by those pious frauds of imagination, which 
ameliorate the future while they disguise the 
past. In the midst of a general dissolution of 
manners (the greater part being alike ignorant 
of a comprehensive morality, and neglectful of 
religious injunctions, which the enjoiners were 
the first to disobey), the orient light of Poetry 
threw a full radiance on the natural heart of 
woman, and, as in the other sex, created the 
high sense of honor it pretended to find. I have 
said that all the four agencies I have mentioned 
had their share in impressing this direction on 
the resurgent genius of Europe. Can it be 
doubted that the spirit of revealed religion, how- 
ever little understood, wrought in the heart of 
man a reverence for the weaker sex, both as 
teaching him to consider their equality with 



192 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

him in the sight of God, and the privileges 
of Christian hfe, and as encouramno; in him- 
self those mild and tender qualities, which 
are the especial glory of womanhood ? Can 
it be doubted, that if this were the tendency 
of Christianity, yet more emphatically it was 
the tendency of Catholicism ? The inordi- 
nate esteem for chastity ; the solemnity at- 
tached to conventual vows ; the interest taken 
in those fair saints, on whom the Church has 
conferred beatitude, that after conquering the 
temptations of earth they might be able to suc- 
cor the tempted ; above all the worship of the 
Virgin, the Queen of Heaven, supposed more 
lenient to sinners for the lenity of her sex ; and 
more powerful in their redemption by her claim 
of maternal authority over her Almighty Son — 
these articles of a most unscriptural, but very 
beautiful mythology, could not be established 
in general belief without investing the feminine 
character with ideal splendor and loveliness. 
But, as an Englishman, I should feel myself 
guilty of ingratitude towards the Goths, my an- 
cestors, if I did not recall to mind that they were 
always honorably distinguished from tlieir neigh- 
bors by a more noble view of the domestic rela- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 193 

tion; and It is not perhaps a chimerical behef 
that the terms of humble homage, with which 
cavaliers of the middle ages addressed the ob- 
jects of their admiration, may have found a pre- 
cedent in the language of those ancient warriors, 
who defied the colossal sovereignty of Rome, but 
bent with generous humility before the beings 
who owed to them their safety, whom they 
considered as the favorites of heaven, the tene- 
ments of frequent inspiration. The love, how- 
ever, which animated the Troubadours was not 
only humble and devotional, but passionate and 
energetic. While they exalt their object to the 
rank of an angel, they would not have her cease 
to be a woman. Here other influences become 
perceptible, the warm temperaments of Italy and 
Spain, and the wild impetuosity of Eastern pas- 
sion. To Islam, indeed, the Christian civiliza- 
tion of Europe owes more than might on first 
thouohts be imamned.* In the forms of Arabic 

* I do not Avish to be understood as adopting in its full ex- 
tent the theory of Warburton and Warton, that all mai'ks of 
Orientalism occurring in romantic literature came by direct 
transmission through the Saracens. It has been amply shown 
by many writers, since the days of Warton, that much will 
still remain unaccounted for, which can onh' be referred to the 
essential Asiatic character of the whole race, now in possession 
13 



194 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

imagination appeared most probably the first 
pattern of that amorous mysticism I have been 
describing, since the immemorial customs of their 
race supplied them with many of those rever- 
ential habits, to which, in the West, I have as- 
signed different causes. Slavery, and that to 
our ideas most revolting, is the general condi- 
tion of the sex in all Asiatic countries ; yet with- 
in this coercive circle is another in which the re- 
lation is almost reversed ; and the seraglio, which 
seems a prison without the walls, witliin might 
present the appearance of a temple. The cares, 
the sufferings, the dangers of common life, ap- 
proach not the sacred precinct in which the Mus- 
sulman preserves the idol of his affections from 
vulgar gaze. Art and luxury are made to minis- 
ter perpetually to her enjoyment. Slaves must 
become more servile in her presence ; flattery 
must be pitched in a higher key, if offered to her 
acceptance. Customs like these, however perni- 
cious to society, are certainly not incapable of 

of Europe. But on the present occasion I shall not be expect- 
ed to enter into so abstruse a question as that of the commu- 
nity of fiction : It is sufficient for my purpose that the Saracen 
influence is an undoubted fact, although some have injudici- 
ously extended this fact to circumstances which are beyond its 
legitimate reach. 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 195 

charming the imagination, and of giving it that 
pecnhar turn which we find in the Gazeles of 
Persian poetry, the Cassides of Arabian, and the 
forms of which were early adopted by the con- 
genial spirits of Provence and Castille. Still 
more evident is the influence of Mahommedan- 
ism on the delicate refinements of warfare, which 
formed the other element of chivalry, and the 
consequent heroic style of composition. From 
the time that, with the reign of the Abbassides, 
began the splendid period of Arabian literature 
and science, what more familiar to Christian 
ears than the illustrious notions of courtesy, and 
honor, which adorned the narratives of those 
itinerant Eastern reciters, seldom absent from 
European courts, and welcome alike to the fes- 
tive hall, or the retirements of listening beauty ? 
Nor were opportunities long wanting of per- 
sonal encomiter with those lordly children of 
the Crescent, who were so presmnptuous as to 
outshine in virtue the devoted servants of Rome. 
The close of the eleventh century is memorable 
for the great contest in Spain, which terminated 
in the Capture of Toledo, and the reduction of 
all New Castille under the sway of Alfonso the 
Sixth. This was indeed a noble struggle, and 



196 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

even at this distance of time may well make us 
glow with exultation. From all parts of Europe 
flocked the bravest knights to the standard of 
the Cid: to their undoubtino- imaoinations the 
religion of the world was at issue, the kingdoms 
of God and Satan were met in visible collision : 
yet the mutual admiration of heroic spirits was 
too strong to be repressed, and neither party 
scrupled to emulate the virtues which they con- 
demned as the varnish of perdition. The Chris- 
tian population of Castille and Arragon had long 
been exposed to the humanizing influences of 
Moorish cultivation : not for nothing had the 
dynasty of the Ommiades been established, or 
the kingdom of Grenada flourished: nor if the 
successors of Abderaman were unable to with- 
stand the flower of Castillian • chivalry, should 
we in justice forget, that they had tempered the 
weapons by which they were overcome ; and 
had they done less for humanity, they might 
have prospered better for themselves. Tlie 
issue of this war, favorable as it was to the cause 
of Christendom, served to increase and diffuse 
this refined valor, and the literary cultm-e which 
had fostered it. The conqueri)r of Toledo gave 
the noble example of an entire toleration ; a 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 197 

numerous Moorish population continued to live 
with the Christian occupants ; and, while they 
mingled in their pursuits, imparted largely the 
spirit of their own. The schools and learned 
institutions retained their dignities : the Moza- 
rabs took rank in the court and the army ; and 
when the French cavaliers returned to their 
native land, when Raymond of Barcelona ob- 
tained the crown of Provence, the good effects 
of their expedition soon became visible in soft- 
ened prejudices, enlarged imaginations, and a 
more ardent love of letters.* The influence of 
the East was not, however, confined to the 
secret moulding of mind ; it displayed itself in 
the outward forms of literary composition, few 
of which are not borrowed from Arabia. The 

* In a very few years this intimacy with Eastern customs was 
renewed. The Crusades were preached, and again the Chris- 
tian cause was set to the peril of the sword. It is needless to 
remark what a wonderful effect they must have produced in 
bringing the European nations into close contact with one an- 
other, and with that common enemy, who was in foct their 
best friend. The Crusades form, as might be expected, the 
most common topic of Provencal poetry, during the l-2th and 
13th centuries. The subjects of Trouveur fiction also experi- 
enced a sudden change. The achievements of Arthur and 
Charlemagne were forgotten: the quest of the S. Greal was 
abandoned ; and in the words of Warton, " Trebisond took place 
of Roncesvalles." 



198 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

tale, or novel, that most delightful vehicle of 
amusing instruction, affording such a range to 
inventive fancy, and pliable to such a variety 
of style, was undoubtedly rendered fashionable 
by the reciters I have already mentioned. All 
the light and graceful machinery of enchant- 
ment, the name and attributes of faerie (cer- 
tainly the most charming expedient ever thought 
of to satisfy the human propensity to polytheism 
without incurring the sin of idolatry), are owed 
to these ingenious travellers, who little thought, 
when they received their dole of recompense 
from some imperious lord, whose care they had 
contributed to relax, what a bounty, beyond all 
recompense, they were involuntarily bestowing 
on the generations about to succeed to this 
Western inheritance. There was a yet more 
important transmission from the Levant, which 
decided the whole bent of modern poetry, I 
mean the use, at least the extensive and varied 
use, of rhyme.* This appears to be the crea- 

* Rhyme has been said to contain in itself a constant appeal 
to memory and hope. This is true of all verse, of all har- 
monized sound; but it is certainly made more palpable b}' the 
recurrence of termination. The dullest senses can perceive an 
identity in that, and be pleased with it; but the partial iden- 
tity, latent in more diffused resemblances, requires, in order to 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 199 

tion of Southern climates: for the Southern 
languages abound in vowels, and rhyme is the 
resonance of vowels, while the Northern over- 
flow with consonants and naturally fall into alht- 
eration. Thus, although it is a great mistake 
which some writers have fallen into, the consid- 
ering rhyme as almost unknown to the poetry 
of the Gothic races, we may fairly consider it as 
transported with them in their original migra- 
tion from their Asiatic birthplace, while the 
alliteration, so common among them, appears a 
natural product of their new locality. No poetry, 
however, in the world was so founded on rhyme 
as the Arabian ; and some of its most comph- 
cated were transferred without alteration to the 
Langue d'Oc, previous to their obtaining immor- 
tality in the hands of Dante and Petrarca. 
Those ingenious turns of fancy, so remarkable 
in the Eastern style, were also eagerly adopted 
by our Western imitators. But they imitated 

be appreciated, a soul susceptible of musical impression. The 
ancients disdained a mode of pleasure, in appearance so little 
elevated, so ill adapted for effects of art; but they knew not, 
and with their metrical harmonies, perfectly suited, as these 
were, to their habitual moods of feeling, they were not likely 
to know the real capacities of this apparently simple and vul- 
gar combination. 



200 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

with a noble freedom and gracefulness : it 
seemed the natural mould of their minds. The 
subtlety of perception, and, at the same time, 
the sportiveness, that were requisite for the 
management of these compositions, is not the 
less curious and admirable in itself, that it was 
employed on classes of resemblance, which our 
more enlarged knowledge considers as unsub- 
stantial and minute. The interval that sepa- 
rates the concetti of that era from the frigid 
sparkles of some modern wits, is generally com- 
mensurate with the eternal division of truth fi'om 
falsehood, strength fi'om weakness, beauty fi'om 
deformity. Where the intellect waxes vigor- 
ous, without any large support from what has 
been termed " bookmindedness," it cannot but 
spend its vivacity on repeated and fantastic 
modifications of its small capital of ideas. There 
may be poverty of thought, in so far as there 
are few objects of thought, but the character 
of the thinking faculty is not poor; and hence 
there is a freshness about the far-fetched com- 
binations of these poets, which makes them true 
to nature, even when to prosaic eye they seem 
most unnatural. 

I have thus endeavored to trace the elements 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 20 1 

of romantic llteratiu^e, in their first state of com- 
position under the auspices of merry Jonglerie : 
in describing them I have, in flict, been analyz- 
ing the Itahan, for all the wealth of Provence 
accrued to the more fortunate writers of the 
Peninsula, who, while they lost nothing on that 
side, were at liberty to add immensely from 
another. The thirteenth century witnessed a 
downfall to Provencal glory yet more sudden 
and surprising than its rise. The barbarous 
war against the Albigenses laid desolate the 
seats of this literature ; and the extinction of 
the houses of Provence and Toulouse reduced 
the Langue d'Oc, which for the space of three 
centuries had sat at the right hand of kings, 
with nations for her worshippers, and had said, 
like the daughter of the Chaldeans, " I shall be 
a lady forever," to the condition of a depend- 
ant menial in the courts of her haughty rival. 
Meanwhile the " lingua cortigiana," gradually 
extricating itself from those peculiarities of 
idiom which rendered the inhabitants of one 
Italian district unintelligible to those of another, 
assumed the rank of a written lanmiao-e, and 
began with better omens to carry on that war 
against the insolent Langue d'Oil, which the 



202 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

successors of Sordel and Arnaud de Marveil 
had ceased to maintain. If I were asked to 
name the reasons which gave this language so 
immeasurable an ascendency over its forerun- 
ner, I should say there are two, both arising 
from its geographical position. Italy had been 
the seat of the ancient Empire ; it was that of 
Catholic religion. Not only would the recov- 
ery of those lost treasures of heathen ci\'iliza- 
tion, the poets, historians, and philosophers of 
Greece and Rome, naturally take place in the 
country where most of them were buried ; but 
there is ever a latent sympathy in the mind 
of a posterity, which recognizes with an instinc- 
tive gladness the feelings of their ancestors, 
when disclosed to therri in books or other mon- 
uments. Who can doubt that the minds of 
Italians would spring up to meet the utterance 
of Cicero, Livy, and Virgil, with a far deeper 
and stronger sense of community, than any 
other nation could have done ! * Therefore 
they not only acquired new objects of thought 

* What a beautiful sj-mbol of this truth is contained in that canto 
of the "Purgatorio " which relates the meeting between Sordel and 
Virgil. Centuries, and the mutations of centuries lapse into noth- 
ing before that strong feeling of homogeneity which bursts forth in 
the " Mantovano ! " 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 203 

at the revival of literature, but tlicy felt 
their owu thought expanded and miraculously 
strengthened. This, then, I assign as the first 
reason of the superiority we perceive in Italian 
that it had a capacity of taking into itself, into 
its OAvn young and creative vigor, the whole 
height, breadth, and depth of human knowl- 
edo'e, as it then stood. Mv second reason 
is that Italy was the centre and home of the 
Catholic Faith. An Italian, whatever might 
be his moral disposition, felt his dignity bound 
up in some sort with the name and cause of 
Christianity. Was not the Pope the Bishop 
of Rome ? and in that word Rome there was 
a spell of sufficient strength to secure his im- 
ao-ination ag;ainst all heresies and schisms. 
Again, the splendors and pomps of the daily 
worship ; the music and the incense, and the 
beautiful samts and the tombs of martyrs — 
what strong hold must they have taken on 
the feelings of every Italian ! It is true the 
profligacies of the Papal court, and many other 
circumstances, had gone to weaken the un- 
doubting faith of Europe before the thirteenth 
century ; but at that period, by the institution 
of Mendicant Orders, a fresh impulse was given 



204 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

to the human heart, ever parched and dying 
of thirst when religion is made a mockery. St. 
Francis has a claim upon our literary gratitude, 
rather more substantial, though less precise in 
form, than his reported invention of the versi 
sciolti. It seems clear, that the spirit awak- 
ened in Italy, through his means and those of 
St. Dominic, prepared the Italian mind for that 
vigorous assertion of Christianity, as the head 
and front of modern civilization, the perpetually 
presiding genius of our poetry, our art, and our 
philosophy. These, then, I consider the two 
directive principles of their literature : the first 
a full and joyous reception of former knowl- 
edge into their own very different habits of 
knowing ; the second a deep and intimate im- 
pression of forms of Christianity. The com- 
bined operation of the two is seen in their 
love-poetry, which dwells "like a star apart," 
separated by broad spaces of distinction from 
every expression of that sentiment in other lan- 
guages. Its base is undoubtedly the Trouba- 
dour poetry, of which I have already spoken, 
but upon this they have reared a splendid ed- 
ifice of Platonism, and surmounted it with the 
banner of the cross. In his treatise " De Vul- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 205 

gari Eloquentia," Dante asserts of the Lingua 
di Si, that even before the date of his OAvn 
writings, "qui dulcius, subtiUusque poetati sunt, 
ii famihares et domestici sui sunt." I think we 
cannot read the poems of Cino da Pistoia, or 
either Guide, without perceiving this early su- 
periority and more mascuhne turn of thought. 
But it was not in scattered sonnets that the 
whole magnificence of that idea could be man- 
ifested, which represents love as at once the 
base and pyramidal point of the entire uni- 
verse, and teaches us to regard the earthly 
union of souls, not as a thing accidental, tran- 
sitory, and dependent on the condition of hu- 
man society, but with far higher import, as the 
best and the appointed symbol of our relations 
with God, and through them of his own ineffa- 
ble essence. In the " Divine Comedy," this 
idea received its full completeness of form ; 
that wonderful work of which, to speak ade- 
quately, we must borrow the utterance of its 
conceiving mind. 

" La gloria di colui, die tutto muove, 
Per I'universo penetra, e risplende, 
In una parte piu, e meno altrove." * 

* D C. Paradise, c. i., v. 1. 



206 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

This is not the occasion for enterino- into a 
criticism, or detailed encomium of Dante ; I only 
wish to point him out as an entire and plenary 
representation of the Italian mind, a summary in 
his individual self of all the elements I have 
been describing, which never before had coex- 
isted in unity of action, a signal-poiiit** in the 
stream of time, showing at once how much 
power was at that exact season aggregated to the 
human intellect, and what direction was about to 
be impressed upon it by the " rushing mighty 
wind," the spirit of Christianity, under whose 
conditions alone a new literature was become 
possible. Petrarch appears to me a corollary 
from Dante ; the same spirit in a different mould 
of individual character, and that a weaker mould ; 
yet better adapted, by the circumstances of its 
position, to diffuse the great thought which pos- 
sessed them both, and to call into existence so 
great a number of inferior recipients of it, as 
might affect insensibly, but surely, the course of 
general feeling. Petrarch was far from appre- 
hending either his own situation, or that of man- 
kind, with anything like the clear vision of Dante 
whom he affected to undervalue, idly striving 
against that destiny which ordained their coop- 



:^ 



ITALIAN WORKS 'OF IMAGINATION. 207 

eration. His life was restless and perplexed ; 
that continual craving for sympathy, taking in 
its lighter moods the form and name of vanity, 
which drove him, as he tells us himself, " fi-om 
town to town, from country to country," would 
have rendered him incapable of assuming the de- 
cisive, initiatory position which was not difficult 
to be maintained by the proud Ghibelline spirit, 
who depended so little on others, so much on 
his own undaunted energies. On that ominous 
morning, when the recluse of Arqua expired, 
his laurelled brow reposing on the volume he 
was reading, the vital powers of Italian poetry 
seemed suspended with his own. The form 
indeed remained unaltered ; so perfect was the 
state of polished cultivation in which he left it, 
that, even when the informing genius was de- 
parted, we may say of it as his own phrase, 
" Death appeared lovely in that lovely face." 
When, after a long interval, inspiration returned 
under the auspices of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
the lineaments of that countenance had under- 
gone a change, and their divinity was much 
abated. Much indeed had been going on in Eu- 
rope, that could not but withdraw men from that 
state of feeling, which produced the creators of 



208 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

Tuscan poetry. The lays of the Troubadours 
were now forgotten ; the very shade of what 
once was Arabian greatness was passing away ; 
ancient hterature had become famihar and almost 
trite ; the republican spirit of Italy was on the 
decline ; the courtly idiom of Paris reigned in 
undisputed supremacy: its ease and gayety, its 
exuberance and inventive narration, its treasures 
of old chivalrous lore, its rude but fascinating 
attempts at dramatic composition, its perfect pli- 
ancy to that worldly temper which would pass 
life off as a jest ; all this good and evil together 
began to give it an ascendency over the mind of 
Europe, already far advanced on the road of civ- 
ilization. The poetry of Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, 
and Tasso, seems to me expressive of this change 
in men's ways of thinking and feeling. I do not 
mean that they are not thoroughly and genuinely 
Italian ; that their poems, especially the immor- 
tal works of Ariosto and his rival, are not rich in 
manifold beauties ; but that there is a laxity, a 
weakness of tone, in the deeper portion of their 
poetic nature ; that theii' efforts are more scat- 
tered, and seem to obey less one mighty govern- 
ing impulse, than was the case with the earlier 
masters ; that, in a word, there was far less 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 209 

genial power, although perhaps far more bril- 
liancy of execution. I would borrow the phrase 
of Brutus, and say, " I do not love these less, 
but Dante and Petrarch more." I feel, in pass- 
ing from one to the other, exactly the same dif- 
ference of impression, with which I should turn 
to a picture of Guido, Domenichino, or any other 
Bolognese painter, after contemplating the pure 
glories of old Tuscan or German art. I know 
nothing more difficult to define than the quality 
and limits of this difference ; to consider it in- 
deed w^ould lead into higher questions than may 
be ao;itated on this occasion. This much, how- 
ever, seems certain. There is in man a natural 
life, and there is also a spiritual : art, which holds 
the mirror up to nature, is then most perfect, 
when it gives back the image of both. 

Havino; thus endeavored to ascertain the true 
character of Italian literature, I come now to 
consider this character in conjunction with the 
writings of Englishmen, confining the inquiry, as 
I have hitherto done, to the products of imagina- 
tion, because in these alone such influences as 
extend beyond palpable imitation become per- 
ceptible, and because I do not find that any his- 
torical or philosophical Italians have materially 
14 



210 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

affected, in any way, the literature of other coun- 
tries. First, then, as in liege duty bound, let us 
look upwards to that serene region, " pure of 
cloud," wherein is revealed the fonu of Chaucer, 
our beautiful morning star, whose beams earh- 
est breaking through the dense darkness of our 
northern Parnassus, did so pierce and dissipate 
its clouds, adorning their abrupt edges with 
golden lining of dawn, 

" That all the orient laughed at the sight," 

He indeed delighted to attend " the nods and 
becks and wreathed smiles," with which the 
Gallic Muse invited young imaginations to follow 
her to those coasts of old Romance, where some- 
times were seen the tourneys and courtly pomp 
of Arthur or Charlemagne, sometimes the mystic 
forms of Allegory, clothing in persuasive shape 
the incorporeal loveliness of Truth. The Langue 
d'Oil, full of a wild freshness that proclaimed its 
origin in the triumphant settlement of the North- 
men, abounded in rich and fanciful fables, which 
found a congenial response on this side of the 
Channel. The conquest of Poitou and Guienne 
during Chaucer's lifetime, by the warriors of 
Crecy and Poictiers, threw open those other 
stores, of which I have already spoken so large- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 21 1 

ly : many Provencal poets followed the Black 
Prince to lils father's court to enjoy their royal 
patronage and general favor. We need only 
cast a hasty glance over the pages of Chaucer 
to perceive how readily he drank at both these 
sources, especially the first, which indeed ever 
since the Conquest had been a spring of refresh- 
ment to English minds.* But we shall perceive 
also a vein of stronger thought and chaster ex- 
pression than were common in Cisalpine coun- 
tries : we shall recognize the subduing, yet at 
the same time elevating power, which passed 
into his soul from their spirits, who just before 
the season of his greatness had " enlumined 

* Mr. Wordsworth, on being asked where the French poetry was 
to be sought for, is said to have replied, " In the old Chronicles." 
I believe that a more assiduous study of early French literature 
tlian is common at present would be repaid by the discover}' of 
much poetic beauty, not merely in prosaic forms, but alluring us 
by varied graces of metrical arrangement. I hope my readers 
will bear in mind that I have been speaking on this occasion of 
two separate Frances: the one, the country of William de Lorris 
and Froissart, justly venerated by our Chaucers, our Gowers, our 
Lydgates, and the other racy thinkers of Norman England; the 
other, a much later invention, retaining few features, except such 
as were negative, of the Langue d'Oil, the country of Boileau and 
Voltaire, essentially hostile to the higher imagination, although 
possessed of advantages for discursive writings which I have men- 
tioned further on. 



212 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

Italie of poetrie." We know that he travelled 
to that land : 

" Quin et in has olim prevenit Tih^rus oras." * 

We have on record his admiration of " Francis 
Petrarke, the laureate Poet," and of that otlier 
wise poet of Florence, " liight Dantes." From 
Boccaccio he imitated, as masters alone imitate, 
that incomparable composition, " The Knighte's 
Tale," also the beautiful story of " Griseldig," 
and probably the " Troilus and Cresseide." In 
the latter he has inserted a sonnet of Petrarch ; 
but it is not so much to his direct adoptions that 
I refer, as to the general modulation of thought, 
that clear softness of his images, that energetic 
self-possession of his conceptions, and that melo- 
dious repose in which are held together all the 
emotions he delineates. The disthict influence 
of the Italian character is more evident with 
respect to the father of our poetry, than after- 
wards with respect to Spenser and his contem- 
poraries, precisely because it was in the first 
period more pure in itself, and had admitted 
little of the Northern romance. The second de- 
velopment of the Italian poetry was, as we have 

* Milton ad Mansum, v. 34, as well as Spenser, gives Chaucer 
the name of Tityrus. 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 213 

seen, formed out of the old chivalrous stories, 
and may be considered as formed on the Norman 
French, just as the first had been on the Proven- 
cal. It came, therefore, bearing its own recom- 
mendation, to our Norman land : exactly the same 
part of our national temper now caught with 
eagerness at Ariosto and Tasso, which, in less 
civilized times, had delighted in the Brut d'An- 
gleterre, or the Koman de la Rose. No sooner 
had the mighty spirit of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion awakened all dormant energies and justified 
all lofty aspirations, than literature of all sorts, 
but especially poetry, began to arise in England ; 
and one of its fii'st results, or steps of progress, 
was to brino; us into close communication with 
this second school of Transalpine poets. As- 
cham, in his " Scholemaster," informs us, that 
about this time an infinite number of Italian 
books were translated into English. Amono-st 
these were many novels which are well known 
to form the groundwork of, perhaps, the larger 
part of our early drama, including Shakspeare. 
It should seem too that our metrical language 
acquired many improvements from this study. 
Warton assures us, that '' the poets in the age 
of Elizabeth introduced a great variety of meas- 



214 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

ures from the Italian ; particularly in the lyrical 
pieces of that time, in their canzonets, madrigals, 
devises, and epithalamiums." It is needless to 
multiply instances of so palpable a fact as is the 
Italian tone of sentiment in those great writers 
to whom we owe almost everything. What 
soothed the solitary hours of Surrey with a more 
powerful magic than Agrippa could have shown 
him ? * What comforted the noble Sidney when 
he sought refuge in flight from the dangerous 
kindness of his too beautiful Stella ? What 
potent charm could lure that genius, whose am- 
bitious grasp an Eldorado had hardly sufficed, to 
utter his melodious plaint over " the grave where 
Laura lay ? " From what source of perpetual 
freshness did Fletcher nourish his tenderness of 
soul, his rich pictorial powers, his deep and va- 
ried melodies ? And what shall not be said of 
him, whose song was moralized by " fierce wars 
and faithful loves," that " sage, serious Spenser " 
of whom Milton speaks, and whom he " dares be 
known to think a better teacher than Scotus or 

* The merciless blows levelled by editorial scepticism at the ro- 
mantic story of Surrey have finished, it seems, b}'^ destroying the 
real Geraldine, as they began by dissipating her illusive semblance. 
See the last edition of Lord Surrey's poems, in Pickering's "Aldine 
Poets." 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 215 

Aquinas ? " It Is worthy of remark that Spen- 
ser, attached as he was to the wilder strains 
of the chivalrous epic, has not, like most of his 
time, neglected the higher mood of the early 
Florentines. The " Hymns to Heavenly Love 
and Beauty," and many parts of the " Fairy 
Queen," especially the sixth canto of the Third 
Book, attest how thoroughly he felt the spirit 
of Petrarch, whom the generality of those writ- 
ers seem to have known only through the Pe- 
trarchisti, so little do they comprehend what 
they profess to copy. It would have been 
strange, however, if, in the most universal mind 
that ever existed, there had been no express 
recoo-uition of that mode of sentiment, which had 
first asserted the character, and designated the 
direction, of modern literature. I cannot help 
considering the sonnets of Shakspeare as a sort 
of homage to the Genius of Christian Europe, 
necessarily exacted, although voluntarily paid, be- 
fore he was allowed to take in hand the sceptre 
of his endless dominion. I would observe, too, 
that the structure of these sonnets is perfectly 
Tuscan, except in the particular of the rhymes, 
— a deviation perhaps allowable to the different 



2l6 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

form of our language, although the examples of 
Milton and Wordsworth have sufficiently shown 
that it is far from indispensable. It is not easy 
to assign just limits to that glorious era, which, 
with rightftil pride, we denominate the Eliza- 
bethan : but perhaps we may consider that 
strange tribe of poems inappropriately styled by 
Johnson the Metaphysical, as a prolongation of 
its inferior characteristics little calculated to form 
a fabric of themselves, although admirably adap- 
ted for ornament and relief. In some of these, 
however, there is a fervor and loyalty of feeling 
which show that the impression of the better 
Italian spirit was not effaced, although in con- 
stant danger of yielding to cumbrous subtleties 
of the understanding. I would in particular 
name Habington's " Castara," as one of those 
works which make us proud of living in the 
same land, and inheriting the same associations, 
with its true-hearted and simple-minded author. 
The restoration of Charles II. was the trumpet 
of a great woe to the poetry of England : from 
this time we may date the extinction of the Ital- 
ian influence, as a national feeling, however it 
may occasionally be visible in the writings of 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 217 

scattered individuals.* But before tlie guardian 
ano;el of our land resigned for a season his flam- 
ing sword, unable to prevent the entrance of that 
evil snake, who ever watches round the enclos- 
ure of this island paradise, and seeks, by varia- 
tion of shape, sometimes elevating a crest of 
treacherous lily whiteness, sometimes smoothing 
a polished coat of three magical hues, to intro- 
duce, as best he may, his malign, presence into 
the abode of liberty and obedience, — before, I 
say, the higher literature of England became 
subject to Paris, its fainting energies were gath- 
ered up into one gigantic effort. Milton, it has 

* Dryden, who led up the death-dance of Parisian foppery and 
wickedness, could not escape from his better nature, his strong 
conservative remnant of good old English feeling: but I see scarce 
any direct influence of the Italians in his writings. Of Pope, 
Thomson, Young, Goldsmith, Akenside, nothing can be said. The 
tesselated mind of Gra}' is partly made up of Italian reading: but 
thei'e is too little vitality in his elegant appropriations to be com- 
municative of life to that surrounding literature, which he had 
sense enough in some things to despise, but not strength enough 
to amend. In the present century we have seen a very successful 
attempt to transfer the light and graceful sportiveness of the Ber- 
nesque style into the weightier framework of our own language. 
I allude to Mr. Frere's " Whistlecraft," and the more celebrated 
productions of a late eminent genius, never perhaps so thoroughly 
master of himself as when indulging a vein of bitter mockery and 
sarcasm on subjects naturally calculated to awaken very different 
feelins^s. 



2l8 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

been well said, constitutes an era by himself: 
no category of a class can rightly include him : 
we see at once in reading him, that he lives not 
in a genial age, and, unlike his predecessors, in 
whom knowledge as well as feeling has an air 
of spontaneity, he seems obliged to keep his 
will in a state of constant undivided activity, in 
order to hold in subservience the reluctantly 
ministering spirits of the outward and inward 
world. But in so far as this perpetually exerted 
energy has chosen for itself the place whereon 
it will act, it certainly brings him into close sym- 
pathy with his immediate forerunners, the Eliza- 
bethans, and through them with their Tuscan 
masters. Well, indeed, did it befit the Chris- 
tian poet, who was raised up to assert the great 
fundamental truth of modern civilization, that 
manners and letters have a law of progression, 
parallel, though not coincident, with the ex- 
pansion of spiritual religion, — to assert this, not 
indeed with the universality and depth with 
which the same truth had been asserted by 
Dante, yet with some relative advantages over 
him, which 'were necessarily obtained from a 
Protestant and English position ; — well, I say, 
did it befit our venerable Milton to draw weap- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 219 

ons for his glorious war from the inexhaustible 
armory of the " Divina Commedia," and acknowl- 
edge his honorable robberies in terms like these : 
" Ut enim est apud eos ingenio quis forte florid- 
ior, aut moribus amoenis et elegantibus, linguam 
Etrusckm in deliciis habet praecipuis, quin et in 
solida etiam parte eruditionis esse sibi ponendam 
ducit, praesertim si Graeca aut Latina, vel nullo, 
vel modice tinctu imbiberit. Ego certe istis 
utrisque Unguis non extremis tantummodo labris 
madidus ; sed, siquis alius, quantum per annos 
licuit, poculis majoribus prolutus, possum tamen 
nonnunquam ad ilium Dantem, et Petrarcham 
aliosque vestros complusculos, libenter et cupide 
comessatum ire : nee me tarn ipsse Athense At- 
ticse cum illo suo pellucido Ilisso, neque ilia vetus 
Roma sua Tiberis ripa retinere valuerunt ; quin 
ssepe Arnum vestrum, et Fsesulanos illos colles 
invisere amem."* What then shall we say of 
these things ? The glories of the Elizabethan 
literature have passed away, and cannot return: 
we are removed from them by the whole collec- 
tive space of two distinct literary manifestations. 
Is it certain, then, that we can do nothing but 

* Epist. Benedicto Bonraatthaeo Florentine, Milt. Pr. Op. p. 571-, 
40. 



220 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

admire what they have been, and lament that 
they cannot be : or can it perhaps be shown, that 
although that Italian effluence has gone away 
into the past, and has been followed by others 
not more permanent than itself, it has yet a more 
immediate hold on our actual condition, than 
either of its successors ? Let us for a moment 
consider these. I would not be understood, in 
what I have spoken concerning the influence of 
France, as believing that influence productive 
of unmixed evil. England, it should never be 
forgotten, had in the last century a great polit- 
ical part to perform. It was necessary perhaps 
that her language should receive some consider- 
able inflexion, corresponding to the active ten- 
dency of the public mind, and expressive rather 
of the direct, palpable uses of life than of senti- 
ments that overleap the present. For such a 
purpose the spirit of French literature, and the 
laws of French composition, were peculiarly fit- 
ted : nor is it a reasonable cause for regret that 
our lano-uao-e has taken into itself some of that 
wonderful idiomatic force, that clearness and con- 
ciseness of arrangement, that correct pointing of 
expression towards the level of general under- 
standing, whicli distinguish the French tongue 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 221 

above all others witli which we are acquainted, 
and render allowable a comparison between it 
and the Latin, which occupied nearly the same 
post in the old civilization as the organ, not of 
genial and original thinking, but of thoughts 
accumulated, set in order, smoothed down, and 
ready for diffusion. The close however of the 
last age, and the first quarter of the present, 
have witnessed a powerful reaction, as well in 
England as on the Continent, against the ex- 
clusive dominion of prosaic, and what are termed 
utilitarian tendencies in literature. It will not 
be disputed that the form at least of this reaction 
comes to us from Germany. Not until the offer- 
ings of Schiller and Goethe had been accepted, 
did Coleridge or Wordsworth kindle their sacri- 
ficial flame on the altar of the muses. Not until 
a whole generation of Germans had elaborated 
the laws of a lofty criticism, were its principles 
effective on our own writers. From them we 
received our good, and fi-om them our evil. 
They taught us that the worship of Beauty is a 
vocation of high and mysterious import, not to 
be relegated into the round of daily amusements, 
or confined by the superstitious canons of tem- 
porary opinion. They held up to our merited 



222 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

derision that meagre spirit of systematized imbe- 
cility, which would proscribe the most important 
part of our human being, as guilty of imperti- 
nent interference with evident interest. But the 
sagacious remark of Bishop Lowth, that " the 
Germans are better at pulling down than at set- 
ting up," is not merely applicable to their his- 
torical criticism. It is a good and honorable 
thing to throw down a form of triumphant 
wrong, but unless we substitute the right, it had 
been well, perhaps, had we never stirred. The 
last state is often worse than the first. I do not 
hesitate to express my conviction, that the spirit 
of the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in 
all the ramifications of art, literature, and moral- 
ity, is as much more dangerous than the spirit of 
mechanical philosophy, as it is fairer in appear- 
ance, and more capable of alliance with our 
natural feelings of enthusiasm and delight. Its 
dangerous tendency is this, that it perverts those 
very minds, whose office it was to resist the per- 
verse impulses of society, and to proclaim truth 
under the dominion of falsehood. However pre- 
cipitate may be at any time the current of public 
opinion, bearing along the mass of men to the 
grosser agitations of life, and to such schemes of 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 223 

belief as make these the prominent object, there 
will always be in reserve a force of antagonist 
opinion, strengthened by opposition, and attest- 
ing the sanctity of those higher principles, which 
are despised or forgotten by the majority. These 
men are secured by natural temperament, and 
peculiar circumstances, from participating in the 
common delusion : but if some other and deeper 
fallacy be invented ; if some more subtle beast of 
the field should speak to them in wicked flattery ; 
if a digest of intellectual aphorisms can be substi- 
tuted in their minds for a code of living truths, and 
the lovely semblances of beauty, truth, affection 
can be made first to obscure the presence, and 
then to conceal the loss of that religious humihty, 
without which, as their central life, all these are 
but dreadfiil shadows ; if so fatal a stratagem can 
be successftilly practised, I see not what hope 
remains for a people against whom the gates of 
hell have so prevailed. When the light of the 
body is darkness, how great is that darkness ! 
Be this as it may; whether the Germans and 
their followers have or have not betrayed their 
trust, it seems at least that their influence is on 
the decline. The effects of what they have done 
are by no means extinct ; the present generation 



224 ORATION ON THE INFLUENCE OF 

is too much moulded by their agency to forget or 
escape it with ease : but the original causes have 
ceased to work, and the master-workers are de- 
parting from the earth. I believe the Revolution 
of 1830 has closed up the German era, just as 
the Revolution of 1789 closed up the French 
era. Looking then to the lurid presages of the 
times that are coming; beheving that amidst the 
awful commotions of society, which few of us do 
not expect, — the disruption, it may be, of those 
common bands which hold together our social 
existence, necessarily followed by an occurrence 
on a larger scale of the same things that were 
witnessed in France forty years ago ; the disper- 
sion of those decencies and charities which cus- 
tom produces and preserves, that mass of little 
motives, brought into unity and constancy of ac- 
tion by the mechanism of daily life, and far more 
efficacious in restraining civilized man from much 
headlong misery and crime than his pride is apt 
readily to acknowledge, — that, in such a desola- 
tion, nothing possibly can be found to support men 
but a true spiritual Christianity, I am not entire- 
ly without hope, that round such an element of 
vital light, constrained once more to put forth its 
illuminating energies for protection and deliver- 



ITALIAN WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 225 

ance to its children, may gather once again the 
scattered rays of human knowledge. In those 
obscured times, that followed the subversion of 
Rome, the muses clung not in vain for safety to 
the inviolate altars of the Catholic church. I 
have endeavored to point out some of the won- 
derful and beautiful consequences of this mar- 
riage of religion with literature ; and I have been 
the more anxious to do this, as it has appeared to 
me by no means impossible, that the recurrence 
of analogous circumstances may produce, at no 
vast distance of time, a recurrence of similar 
effects. It is not wholly without the bounds of 
probability, that a purer spirit than the Roman 
Catholicism may animate hereafter a loftier form 
of European civilization. But should this be an 
idle dream (and indeed my ow^n anticipations 
seldom incline to so fiivorable an aspect) it will 
not be the less useful or important, in times 
of unchristian ascendency, to fix oiu* thoughts 
habitually on that first development of modern 
literature, which show^s us the direct, and, as it 
were, natural influence of our religion on our 
conditions of society, and the expression of this 
in our inquiring thoughts and stirring emotions. 
An English mind that has drank deep at the 
15 



226 ORATION ON WORKS OF IMAGINATION. 

sources of southern inspiration, and especially 
that is imbued with the spirit of the mighty- 
Florentine, will be conscious of a perpetual fresh- 
ness and quiet beauty, resting on his imaginations 
and spreading gently over his affections, until, by 
the blessing of heaven, it may be absorbed with- 
out loss, in the pure inner light, of which that 
voice has spoken, as no other can : 

" Light intellectual, yet full of love, 
Love of true beauty, therefore full of joy, 
Joy, every other sweetness far above." * 



* " Luce intellettual, piena d'amore, 

Amor di vero ben, pien di letizia, 
Letizia, che transcende ogni dolzore." 

D. C. Paradiso, c. 30. 



ESSAY 



THE PinLOSOPHICAL WRITINGS OF CICERO. 



' Ille, decus Latii, magnae spes altera Romae, 
Ore effundit opes fandi certissimus auctor; 
Tantum omnes superans prseclaro munere linguae, 
Quantum iit ante alias Romana potentia gentes." — Vida. 




^O write worthily concerning the charac- 
ter of Cicero, would be an undertaking, 
than which few are more difficult, or more 
extensive. For, first, it is impossible not to be 
touched with reverence, and a kind of religious 
awe, when we look towards the figure of any 
great and noble mind, belonging, as regards 
his natural course, to times long departed, but 
hving among us all, by his thoughts perpet- 
uated in writing, which, actively circulatmg 
through numberless minds, and present with- 
out difficulty to several points of place and time, 
give us a far greater impression of efficiency 



228 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

than any act whatever (though voluntary, which 
these are not) of the same man, when conscious 
and ahve. In fact, it is hardly to be thought 
surprising, that many should care for no immor- 
tality so much as this ; for although there will 
be no sense, or pleasure of enjoyment in it, 
when it comes, they can relish it, at least, by 
anticipation, which has often a better taste than 
fruition, and they may have full assurance of 
its nature by observing the celebrity of other 
men. Some of these immortals, however, do 
not puzzle us much when, putting aside the first 
sentiments of wonder and respect, we step nearer 
to examine with precision their lineaments and 
true demeanor. But when we have to do with 
a mind of various powers, whose solicitous ac- 
tivity neither public business nor private study 
can exhaust, and which can steal time from the 
engrossing occupations of state policy for the 
pursuit of liberal knowledge, and the commu- 
nication of it to mankind, we find ourselves in- 
volved in much perplexity, and feel that, even 
after some labor has been expended, it will be 
little better than guesswork that finally strikes 
the balance, and ascertains by relative estima- 
tion of unlike qualities his true station in the 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 229 

temple of fame. The jocular anatliema, pro- 
nounced by Sir Robert Walpole on history in 
o-eneral, hits with peculiar force the judgments 
we form of motives and intellectual qualities, 
things so curiously complicated in the reality 
of nature, that our httle knowledge has noth- 
ing to ground itself upon but a few loose rules 
collected by a very confined induction from ex- 
ternal appearances. How httle, in fact, does 
one creature know of another, even if he Kves 
with him, sees him constantly, and, in popular 
language, knows all about him ! Of that im- 
mense chain of mental successions, which ex- 
tends from the cradle to the death-bed, how 
few links, comparatively speaking, are visible to 
any other person ! Yet fr'om these fragments 
of being (if the expression may be pardoned) 
you shall hear one decide as confidently about 
the unseen and unimagined whole, as a geolo- 
gist from his chip of stone will explain the 
structure of the mass to which it belonged, and 
even the changes of fortune which it has re- 
ceived at the hand of time. Experience, how- 
ever, the final judge, treats these two specula- 
tors in a very different manner. And what is 
the reason? Unfortunately, human beings are 



230 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

not lapidary formations : tliej are not even ani- 
mals of pure understanding, which might come 
near it : their microcosm is as infinite in its 
forms as the world without us, and in one, as 
in the other, we must obey the laws by obser- 
vation and experiment, before we can venture 
to command the elements by arbitrary combi- 
nation. A question may be raised, whether, if 
the veil that obscures other existence from view 
were altogether removed, and that mode of im- 
mediate vision became usual, which Rousseau* 
fancied was more conceivable than the commu- 
nication of motion by impact, we should, after all, 
derive much benefit from the change. But 
there can be no doubt it would wonderfrilly 
alter for the better our histories and biographi- 
cal memoirs, and would effect a prodigious shift- 
ing of place among many worthies who are set 
high, or low, without much warrant, according 
to our present system of knowledge. 

This Essay, however, has no such ambitious 
aim, as to include the whole character of Cicero 
within the scope of its observations. It is in- 
tended only to take a brief survey of one ele- 
ment in his diversified genius, the philosophical ; 
* See Nouvelle Helmse. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 23 1 

Ijut it will be difficult to mark the limits of this 
without an occasional glance at those other qual- 
ities, by which it is bounded, and which some- 
times curiously intersect it. This will be evi- 
dent if we consider that a question concerning 
the merits of Ciceronian philosophy natui'ally 
resolves itself into two parts. In what temper 
of mind, it should first be asked, did Cicero 
come to form and deliver his opinions ? And, 
secondly, what those opinions were ? Now the 
first of these is, beyond comparison, the most 
interesting and important. A man, it has been 
well said, " is always other and more than his 
opinions." To understand something of the pre- 
dispositions in any mind, is to occupy a height 
of vantage, fi*om which we may more clearly 
perceive the true bearings of his thoughts, than 
was possible for a spectator on the level. By 
knowing how much a man loves truth, we learn 
how far he is likely to teach it us : by ascer- 
taining the special bent of his passions and habits, 
Ave are on our guard against giving that credit 
to conclusions in favor of them, which our no- 
tion of his discernment might otherwise incline 
us to give. JBut there is more than this. The 
inward life of a great man, the sum total of his 



23Z ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

impressions, customs, sentiments, gradual proc- 
esses of thought, rapid suggestions, and the 
like, contains a far greater truth, hoth in extent 
and in magnitude, than all the fixed and posi- 
tive forms of belief that occupy the front-row 
in his understanding. It is more our interest 
to know the first, for we know more in know- 
ing it, and are brought by it into closer con- 
tact with real greatness. Opinion is often the 
product of an exhausted, not an energetic con- 
dition of mind : a few thouo^hts are sufficient to 
make up many opinions, and though these are 
always in some proportion to the degree of ele- 
vation allotted to their parent-mind, they are 
seldom, perhaps, its certain measure. 

In the instance we have now to consider, many 
such predisposing influences will occur to the 
most careless observer. Cicero was a Roman, 
and we must view him with reference to the 
circumstances of Roman life, and the peculiar 
tendencies of its national feelino^. He was a 
Roman statesman, and we must not forget the 
absorbing interest of politics in his time, and 
country, while we estimate the value he set 
on the calmer studies of his retirement. He 
was also a Roman gentleman, fond of social 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 233 

life, and capable of guiding and adorning its 
movements : he had elevated his family and 
name, by his own indefatigable exertions, from 
the ranks of provincial society ; and was nat- 
urally ambitious of that life of literary brilhance 
which had already superseded in public esti- 
mation the honors of patrician birth, and was 
becrinnino- to vie with the more substantial rev- 
erence paid to high dignities and large posses- 
sions. Above all, he was, by long habit and 
peculiar genius, a Roman orator, accustomed 
alike to the grave deliberations of the senate 
and the impassioned pleadings of the forum. 
All these influences (and some of them were 
not a little feverish and disturbing) he carried 
with him into the quiet fields and lucid atmos- 
phere of philosophy. Whether he agitated that 
region by what he brought, more than he bene- 
fited himself, and through himself the world, 
by what he found, is an inquiry which may 
prove entertaining and useful, and which we 
shall be better able to bring to a satisfactory 
conclusion when we have considered rather 
more at length the relation of these previous 
tendencies to the investigation and discovery 
of truth. 



234 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

It lias been a favorite notion with those mod- 
ern writers, who are fond of considering the 
unity of mood, produced by a constant action 
of similar circumstances on the mind of a nation, 
in rather an abstract point of view, that the Ro- 
mans represent the political, as the Greeks did 
the individual development of human intelli- 
gence and energy. Whatever objections may 
lie against forms of expression, which, when 
habitually applied by speculators on history, are 
apt to mislead by a frequently recurring appear- 
ance of system, always seductive to the imagina- 
tion, but proportionably dangerous to the ob- 
serving intellect, it seems impossible to deny 
that much truth is contained in this remark. 
It is not of course meant, that the institutions 
of social convention did not attain a singular 
degree of perfection among the Grecian states, 
or that their complexion was not generally fa- 
vorable to the cultivation of individual genius ; 
but simply that no strong national spirit impelled 
the Greeks to national ago-randizement as the 
paramount object of their activity, which was the 
case with the conquering people who succeeded 
them in the career of civilization. A country 
of small republics, perpetually at strife with each 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 235 

otlier, had little unity of aim, except when men- 
aced by barbarian inroads. Patriotism, indeed, 
was raised high in the scale of dvities, and on 
the same plea that " omnes omnium caritates 
patria complectitur," the same energy was ex- 
erted for the public good, which afterwards, on 
a larger theatre, enforced the admiring submis- 
sion of mankind. But the public sympathies of 
the Athenian were opposed to those of the Lace- 
demonian, and no single city threatened to ab- 
sorb the world into the greatness of its name. 
The fascination of that name was wanting, and 
the sense of favoring destiny, which in the 
thought of every Roman blended his proud rec- 
ollections of past triumph with the confident hope 
of an equally subservient fiiture. Nor do we 
find that, where the bonds of Grecian pohty 
were strongest, the vigor of literary genius was 
most conspicuous or effective. The severer, as 
well as the lighter Muses, fled from the walls 
of Sparta ; for the patronage, extended by Ly- 
curgus to the shade of Homer, failed to kindle 
the finer sentiments among the subjects of his 
legislation. On the other side (if we except 
the dramatic poets, whose local attachments 
were naturally strengthened by the necessities 



236 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

of their art), no strong sympathy with national 
advance or decUne seems, under cHmates more 
congenial to art and knowledge, to have in- 
spired the eminent leaders of human thought. 
Pindar attended on a court ; Plato could ex- 
change the liberal air of Athens for the atmos- 
phere of Syracusan tyranny : Aristotle,* " the 
soul of the academy," was attached to it only 
by the life of its founder, and turned content- 
edly, after his death, to the court of Hermeas, 
and the counsels of Macedonian oppression. 
This comparative laxity of civil ties, owing 
perhaps in some measure to the capricious na- 
ture of those " fierce democraties " which made 
political eminence less desirable, because less 
secure, was conducive to that depth of medita- 
tion and comprehensiveness of views, which 
carried the Grecian spirit to heights of excel- 
lence, that will exercise the wondering gaze of 
our latest posterity. The sculptors and poets 
were left free to enjoy the unlimited inspiration 
of natural beauties, which are not of this age, 
or of that empire, but everlasting, and complete 
in themselves as the ideas they produce in the 

* " 'O vovg Ti]c diarpLfSrjg^''^ was the appellation given by Plato 
to his future rival. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 237 

meditative artist, who has a higher standard of 
perfection within him than the most glorious of 
recollected names — a Fabricius, a Brutus, or a 
Numa. Whatever elevation the contemplative 
and creative parts of our nature were fitted to 
attain, when left to the free exercise of their 
own functions, neither restrained, and, as it 
were, overlaid by a bond of national feeling in- 
tent on national glory, nor deriving an auxiliar, 
yet heterogeneous force from the diifusion of a 
spiritual faith ; such elevation, we may safely 
say, was attained by the Greeks. The fair in- 
ventions of their art, the pure deductions of 
their science, all the curious and splendid com- 
binations of thought, which arise from the habit 
of viewing the circumstances of man in the 
single light of poetic beauty, or according to 
distinct forms of intellectual congruity, remain 
to us in their precious literature, and attest 
how clear, how serene, how majestically in- 
dependent of merely local and temporary views, 
was the genius of ancient Greece, who laid the 
honey on the lips of Plato, and raised the tem- 
ple of the graces within the bosom of Sopho- 
cles. 

Everything in the Roman character was the 



238 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

reverse of this, and announced to attentive re- 
flection a different destiny, and a new evolution 
of mental nature. Sprung from the embrace 
of Mars, this people of determined warriors 
rose by slow degrees to an universal dominion, 
and every separate will, that came into action 
under the auspices of their patron god, seemed 
to bend itself by spontaneous impulse to ftilfil 
his overruling intention and redeem his early 
promise. The infancy of Rome was nourished 
by a martial and religious poetry, which be- 
came extinct when the season of extended ac- 
tion arrived. Then the lessons taught and 
matured in probationary struggles with the 
brave Italian populations were applied to a tre- 
mendous battle against the several supremacies 
of Europe ; and, the scabbard being thrown 
away, that sword was displayed in irresistible 
splendor, which for a space of centuries was to 
tame the haughty and proudly spare the sup- 
pliant. Such was, throughout, the consistency 
of their progress, that all their institutions and 
customs bore the impress of one ruling idea ; 
and insensate things seemed to unite with hu- 
man volitions in a glad furtherance of the glo- 
rious race. The paths of scientific discovery 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 239 

and secluded imagination were naturally un- 
heeded by minds so strongly possessed with 
notions of " pride, pomp, and circumstance." 
Their ordinary pursuits were practical, and 
their highest aims political. They had no 
original literature, and they did not feel the 
want. There was much vigorous conception, 
but it all went into the outward world, the 
empire of their triumphant w411.* When, at 
length, conquest brought luxury in Its train, 
and artificial appetites sprang from the excess 
of social stimulus, the graces of a foreign lan- 

* " The austere frugality of the ancient republicans, their care- 
lessness about the possessions and the pleasures of wealth, the 
strict regard for law among the people, its universal and steadfast 
loyalty during the happy centuries when the constitution, after the 
pretensions of the aristocracy had been curbed, were flourishing in 
its full perfection, the sound feeling which never, amid internal 
discord, allowed of an appeal to foreign interference, the absolute 
empire of the laws and customs, and the steadiness with which, 
nevertheless, whatever in them was no longer expedient, was 
amended, the wisdom of the constitution, the ideal perfection of 
fortitude, realized in the citizens and in the state; all these quali- 
ties unquestionably excite a feeling of reverence which cannot 
equally be awakened by the contemplation of any other people." 
This summary of Roman virtues is extracted from the work of 
a philosophic historian, who proceeds to fill the opposite scale, and 
to mark out their vices with a wise impartiality. — See Niebuhr. 
Lecture prefixed to second edition of Translation, Hare and Thirl- 
wall, p. 26. 



240 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

guage were first sought to supply a fashiona- 
ble gratification, and soon produced tlieir emol- 
lient effects of taste and refined pleasure ; but 
they never touched the ground of character,* 
which was far too solidly fixed to admit of 
change from superinduction. Systems of phil- 
osophy were imported for the amusement and 
use of a highly civilized population ; but amidst 
much ingenious discussion and collision of opin- 
ions, no sparks of strong philosophic thought 
were elicited ; and those chasms in knowledge, 
which were left obscure by the burning lights 
of elder science, received no new illumination 
from the masters of the earth. If the obstacles 
to the rise of an original philosophy, grounded 
on the intrinsic character of the Romans, may 
fairly seem insuperable, they must doubtless be 
considered as derivins; an immense accession of 
force from the peculiar condition of the re- 
public in the age of Cicero. Corruption had 
reached the heart of the state ; the few, in 
whom the lifeblood of patriotism still circu- 
lated, felt the indispensable importance and aw- 

* Lucretius and Catullus are the confirming exceptions. That 
must indeed be a barren and fetid soil, in which poetry cannot 
strike a single root. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 241 

ful interest attached to an active life : the larger 
number, with whom a superficial acquaintance 
with theories, nicknamed jjhilosophical knowl- 
edge, served as an excuse for indolence, or a 
varnish for vice, were constitutionally disqual- 
ified for the keen intuition of truth, and the 
generous mood of enthusiasm, in which sugges- 
tion strikes the mind like inspiration. The 
Greek teachers, from whom their little learn- 
ing was immediately derived, were very unlike 
that former race, the B^ot TraAatot of philosophy. 
There were exceptions, perhaps, at all events 
there were degrees of merit : a Posidonius,* 
or a PanjBtius, is not to be classed with the vul- 
gar herd of sophists. But the general differ- 
ence was too manifest to be mistaken : what 
in the hands of Plato had been an art, in those 
of Aristotle a science, was now become an 
easy trade. A minute fastidious casuistry sup- 
plied the place of that reasoning, and that 
'' KpELTTov Tt Aoyov," whicli sought to elevate 
mankind to the level of true wisdom by an 
assiduous cultivation of sentiments possessed by 

* Was it not a fine acknowledgment of the inherent supremacy 
of wisdom, when the imperatorial fasces were lowered b}' com- 
mand of Pompey, before the person of Posidonius? 
16 



242 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

all, at least in the germ ; sentiments, by whose 
action on a plastic imagination the most beauti- 
ful phenomena of mental combination are elic- 
ited, and a mass of desires and hopes receive 
their form and constitution, whose luminous 
nature repels the darkness of the grave. Wiser 
in their own generation than the children of 
light, these new instructors readily yielded to 
the prevalent temper of their age ; and while 
they flattered the reigning profligacy of man- 
ners, by relegating morality into the arid re- 
gions of rules, maxims, and verbal distinctions, 
they effectually secured the profits and reputa- 
tion of their own vagabond profession. The 
general tendency of men's minds at this mo- 
mentous era, was unquestionably towards a 
sceptical indifference ; such must ever be the 
effect of degenerate institutions and corrupted 
manners, accompanied with great operative en- 
ergy in the machine of the state, and an habit- 
ual reliance of almost every individual mind on 
external and transitory things, the vicissitudes 
of fortune, and the obhgations of palpable inter- 
est. It was an unbelieving age, and none who 
lived within its term escaped altogether the con- 
tagion. In periods of this description, the aphe- 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 243 

lia of national existence, some will generally be 
found who withstand to a certain extent the pre- 
dominant tendency, and attest to a fliture genera- 
tion the inherent dignity of our nature. Their 
efforts are limited, and their self-elevation is not 
constant ; yet they are green places in the moral 
wilderness on which our thoughts should delight 
to linger. 

If there be any truth in these observations, 
we should expect, a priori^ what the examina- 
tion of his writings will abundantly demon- 
strate, that the expressed mind of Cicero would 
exhibit signatures of both these impressions ; 
the general impression, I mean, of national pre- 
dilections, and active, external tendencies of 
thought ; and that particular impression, origi- 
nating in the character of the times, and leading 
to disputation about prevailing opinions, rather 
than independent research, to pulling down in 
the spirit of incredulity, without attempting to 
reconstruct in a temper of faith. But we could 
not have told beforehand, that he would be in- 
cluded in that small class of partial exceptions 
I have mentioned, and that the scepticism he 
shared with many was tinged and modified by 
a genial warmth, which was peculiarly his own. 



244 ^'S'.S'^l^ ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

Sometimes a disciple of Carneades, sometimes of 
Plato, he varies tlie tone of liis language accord- 
ing to the alternate moods that possess him. In 
a memorable passage he owns, that to preserve 
the fair proportions of his moral edifice, it was 
necessary to keep out of thought and mention, 
" harum perturbatricem omnium academiam." * 
I shall now consider a characteristic of Cic- 
ero's disposition, which was more dependent on 
himself, and the traces of which are everywhere 
perceptible in his life and writings. Whatever 
he thought, whatever he experienced, assumed 
with him an oratorical form. Truth had few 

^ " Exoremus ut sileat," he continues, "nam si invaserit in 
h^c quae satis scite instructa et composita videantur, nimis edet 
ruinas, quam quidem ego PLACARE cupio, SUBMOVERE 
NON AUDEO."— De Legibus, i. 13. The principles of the 
Academic sect, " haec ab Arcesila et Carneade recens," are un- 
folded in the books of Academic Questions, and those De Natura 
Deorum. In the Offices, 1. ii. c. 2, he thus briefly expresses 
them : " Non sumus ii quorum vagetur mens errore, nee habeat 
unquam, quod sequatur: quae enim esset ista mens, vel quae vita 
potius, non solum disputandi, sed etiani vivendi ratione sublata? 
Nos autem, ut ceteri, qui alia certa, alia incerta esse dicunt, sic 
ab his dissentientes alia probabilia, contra alia improbabilia esse 
diciraus." Aulus Gellius, in a jesting manner, explains the dif- 
ference between the Pyrrhonians and these Academics. " The 
latter," he says, were certain the}' could know nothing; the former 
were not more certain of that than anything else! " 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 245 

charms for him, unadorned and avr-q KaO' avryv ; 
he dehghted, indeed, in tlie analogies which rea- 
son presents ; but it was because they are sus- 
ceptible of brilliant coloring and emphatic dis- 
play. Once, when undergoing the misery of 
exile, and disgusted for a time with the bold 
game he had been playing with the passions 
and habits that had made him what he was, he 
besought his friends " ut non oratorem se, sed 
philosophum appellarent, nam se philosophiam, 
ut rem sibi proposuisse, arte oratoria, tanquam 
instrumento, in rebus publicis tractandis uti." * 
Other times brought another language ; and, in 
direct contradiction to the above, he has de- 
clared, in more than one passage,! what the 
internal evidence of his life and writings was 
amply sufficient to estabhsh, that he learned 
philosophy " eloquently gratia." 

Much as has been said, since the idols were 
first stricken in the temple by the commissioned 
hand of Bacon, about the mischief of substitut- 
ing poetical illustration for real cohesion of truth 
to truth, it may perhaps be found, on examina- 
tion, that a rhetorical spirit is a more dangerous 

* See Brucker, Eist. Phllosoph., vol. ii. p. 39, and his reference 
to Plutarch. 

t See Proem. Paradox., Orator, sub. init, Tusc. Qurest., 2, 3. 



246 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

intruder. Poetry, indeed, is seductive by ex- 
citing in us tliat mood of feeling, which conjoins 
all mental states, that pass in review before it, 
according to congruity of sentiment, not agree- 
ment of conceptions : and it is with justice, 
therefore, that the Muses are condemned by the 
genius of a profound philosophy. But though 
poetry encourages a wrong condition of feeling 
with respect to the discovery of truth, its en- 
chantments tend to keep the mind within that 
circle of contemplative enjoyment, which is not 
less indispensably necessary to the exertions of a 
philosophic spirit. We may be led wrong by 
the sorcery ; but that wrong is contiguous to the 
right. Now it is part of our idea and descrip- 
tion of oratory, that it appeals to the active fiinc- 
tions of our nature. It is the bringing of one 
man's mind to bear upon another man's will. 
We call up our scattered knowledge, we arrange 
our various powers of feeling, we select and mar- 
shal the objects of our observation, and then we 
combine them under the command of one strong 
impulse, and concentre their operations upon 
one point. That point is in every instance some 
change in the views, and some corresponding as- 
sent in the will of the person, or persons, whom 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 2^7 

we address. Thus we are transported entirely 
out of the sphere of contemplation, and are sub- 
mitted to the guidance of a new set of passions, 
far more vehement, confused, and perplexing, 
than those pure desires that elevate the soul to- 
wards the '' ovT(j><; ovra" because they have far 
more immediate control over individual futurity, 
and are much more concerned with the repre- 
sentations of the senses. I do not mean to deny 
that the vivid impression of timth is naturally ac- 
companied by its eloquent utterance. Wherever 
there is strong emotion, there will be always 
a corresponding vigor of expression, unless the 
channel between thought and language happens 
to be obstructed by peculiar causes. But elo- 
quence is spread abroad among mankind, while 
oratory is the portion of a few. The one is the 
immediate voice of nature, and derives its charm 
from momentary impulse ; the other is an art, 
circumscribed by definite laws which have their 
origin in the creative power of genius. Excited 
in the first instance by our social instincts, the 
faculty of speech has become to civilized man a 
source of independent pleasure, which mingles 
with, or rather constitutes, the delight of his soli- 
tary reveries and intellectual meditations. In 



248 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

proportion to the refinement of his feeling, the 
livehness of his mental images, and the varieties 
of knowledge treasured up in memory, will be 
the graceful forms and multiplied combinations 
of his internal language. But as regards him- 
self, if he has in any degree the power of search- 
ing out the relations of things by intellectual 
application, he will not suffer his trains of active 
thought to be trenched upon by those arrange- 
ments of diction, whose place is posterior to 
thought in natural order, and which appear to 
confer on the mind that forms them a kind of 
recompense for its keener labors of introspection. 
When again his eloquence is directed to others, 
a man of this description is too sensible of that 
truth, or belief, of which it is the spontaneous 
overflow, to have any reflex action of thought on 
his own relative position, and the power which he 
may exert to mould the determinations of those 
whom he addresses. He seeks to persuade, but 
it is because he is persuaded, and requires the 
concurrence of sympathy. He may lead his fel- 
low-creatures from the truth ; but this chance is 
unavoidable, so long as words are our only signs 
of notions and media of reasoning. Still every- 
thing has occupied its right place : the faculties 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 249 

have had free play, and each has kept clear of 
the other. But in a mind, whose conformation 
is oratorical, the whole process is in danger of 
beino- inverted and confused. The orator mis- 
takes the suggestion of his art for the analogies 
of solid reason. He begins by arguing where he 
ought to infer, and thus deceives himself Then 
he pleads when he ought to state, and thus de- 
ceives others. There is little danger, indeed, 
that an orator of the highest order, — a man, 
wdio not only feels the dignity of the mission 
which he fldiils, but who, from the clearness and 
multiplicity and uniform direction of his rapid 
ideas, acquires that intuitive and comprehen- 
sive intelligence, which by condensing, and, as it 
were, fusing his powers, almost seems to commu- 
nicate to his soul a larger portion of existence, — 
there is little danger that such a man will relin- 
quish his art, will leave this high mode of vision 
and power, will descend, as into plains and val- 
leys, to the methods of ordinary knowledge, or 
(which is least probable) will transfer his atten- 
tion to a new province of the higher intellect, 
the character of which is dissimilar, and requires 
capacities not moulded like his own. Let a man 
but enter deep into his favorite art, and he is not 



250 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

likely to make use of it to subvert the laws, or 
tarnish the qualities, of any other mental pursuit. 
Every art is the application of knowledge to some 
definite end; but the ends are many, and the 
methods are distinct. The fine or imaginative 
arts — painting, sculpture, music, and poetry — 
have for their end the production of a mood of 
delightM contemplation with the sense of beauty. 
A vivid impression of some mental state, as beau- 
tiful, tends to bring in a train of associated states, 
which will all be under the same mood of lively 
emotion, as the first in the train. If we change 
the character of the mood, the continuity of as- 
sociation will be broken, and there is nothing so 
disagreeable to the mind as any such interrup- 
tion. Hence, if, while the mind is delineating its 
own previous states under the influence of some 
particular mood, any object is presented by casual 
association, the tendency of which is to excite 
feelings not congenial to that which has taken 
possession of the mind, there arises a perception 
of unfitness, and the object is rejected. This is 
the subtle law of Taste, that exists in the cre- 
ative artist as a sort of conscience, against which 
his will may trespass, but his judgment cannot 
rebel. The same law is absolute for the orator : 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 251 

but the difference in his case results from the dif- 
ference of his aim, and, consequently, of his ma- 
terials. He, too, resigns himself to one luminous 
mood, which extends its radiance over succes- 
sive states, and is unwilling to admit any form of 
mental existence, besides itself. But his aim is 
the commotion of will, not the production of 
beauty. This, therefore, is the bearing of the 
emotion that casts an awakenino; liMit over his 
mind : by their analogy to this leading senti- 
ment, the hosts of Suggestion are judged ; and 
from a variety, thus harmonized, results the dis- 
tinctive unity of his art. But the number of 
pure artists is small : few souls are so finely tem- 
pered as to preserve the delicacy of meditative 
feeling, untainted by the allurements of acci- 
dental suggestion. The voice of the critical con- 
science is still and small, like that of the moral : 
it cannot entirely be stifled where it has been 
heard, but it may be disobeyed. Temptations 
are never wanting : some immediate and tem- 
porary effect can be produced at less expense of 
inward exertion than the high and more ideal 
effect which art demands : it is much easier to 
pander to the ordinary, and often recurring wish 
for excitement, than to promote the rare and dif- 



252 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

ficult intuition of beauty. To raise the many to 
liis own real point of view, the artist must em- 
ploy his energies, and create energy in others : 
to descend to their position is less noble, but 
practicable with ease. If I may be allowed the 
metaphor, one partakes of the nature of redemp- 
tive power ; the other, of that self-abased and 
degenerate will, which " flung from his splen- 
dors " the fairest star in heaven. They who 
debase, in this manner, the persuasive art, are 
commonly called rhetoricians, not orators. They 
speak for immediate effect, careless how it is pro- 
duced. They never measure existing circum- 
stances by the relations of the inOavov, internally 
perceived. In the mind of the true orator, 
all accidents of place and time seem to be at- 
tracted to the magnetic force of his conceptions, 
which have an order of their own, not wholly 
dependent on the observation of the moment. 
But the rhetorician makes himself the servant 
of circumstances, and yet, after all, cannot pene- 
trate their meaning. His examination is close 
and coarse, and he sees little, in his hurry to see 
better ; the orator stands upon a height, and com- 
mands the whole prospect, and can modify his 
view by the lens of genius. Between the pure 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 233 

orator and the mere rhetorician many shades of 
mixture intervene. To degrade that powerful 
mind, which in its maturity of vigor uttered 
" tonitrua magis quam verba " against the des- 
perate Catihne, and whose later age produced 
the " divina Philippica," to the lowest of these 
ranks, would be to pass sentence on my own 
judgment ; but I must hesitate, even against the 
opinion of many wise men, before I consent to 
elevate him to the highest. The loftier powers 
of imagination were altogether wanting. There 
was none of the vivid painting and instinctive 
sublimity, which make Demosthenes the model 
of ages. His happiest efforts are efforts still ; 
the process of intellectual construction is always 
palpable ; and though the ingenuity may be won- 
derful, and command our high approbation, our 
minds have in reserve something higher than 
approbation, and ingenuity will not call it forth. 
Cicero won, and ruled his audience, not by 
flashes of inspiration, but by industrious thought. 
The thoughts were not wonderful in themselves, 
were not born one out of another by a genera- 
tion so rapid as to seem mysterious ; but were 
accumulated by separate exertions of will, and 
pi'oduced their effect by the gross amomit of 



254 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

numberless deliberations. Where understanding 
is more active in production than feeling, the 
predominance of rhetoric (to use the word " in 
malam partem ") over true oratory is the certain 
result. But when this happens to any mind, it 
will be no easy matter to restrain this predomi- 
nant tendency within the limits of its own pur- 
suit. The delicate sense of fitness, which grows 
with the growth of the contemplative feelings, 
becomes weak when they are neglected ; and 
the busy intellect, unembarrassed by its incon- 
venient monitions, begins to meddle with all the 
range of practical and speculative knowledge in 
a temper of incessant argumentation. 

From these considerations it is evident that 
Cicero labored under strong previous disadvan- 
tages in his approach to the sanctuary of Wis- 
dom. The " (}>vya fjiovov Tvpoq /xovov," preached by 
the latter Platonists, was not possible for him. 
He did not come alone ; he brought with him a 
thousand worldly prepossessions, which were to 
him as the veil of the temple at Sais, hiding im- 
penetrably, " that which was, and had been, and 
was to be." He adventured, nevertheless ; and 
if he wanted altogether the originality and fresh- 
ness of the Grecian thinkers, we owe to his 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 255 

industry, patience, and acuteness, the general 
diffusion and reduction to popular language of 
much that had been finely thought, and without 
him mio-lit never have obtained free currencv 
among mankind. I shall proceed to notice 
briefly the opinions maintained by him on some 
of the most important subjects of human specu- 
lation. 

It is doubtless in the character of a moral in- 
structor, that Cicero challenges the largest share 
of our admiration. The simplicity and distinct- 
ness of his precepts render them intelligible to 
all, while the gravity and persuasive energy, the 
richness and graceful elegance of his manner, 
tend to fix them in memory, and interest the im- 
aoination in their behalf. Seldom or never does 
he rise to the occasional elevation of Seneca, but 
he is ft-ee also from that writer's exaggeration 
and causeless refinements. All that department 
of morality, which contains the duties of justice, 
and from w^hich public and private legislation im- 
mediately emanate, was treated by him with the 
greatest copiousness and accuracy. This the 
view I have taken of his ruling habits w^ould 
lead us to expect ; and it is certain that this 
branch of philosophical knowledge could not but 



256 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

borrow additional vigor from his political pur- 
suits. After tlie example of Plato, he composed 
six books "De Republica," (the newly-recovered 
treasure of our fortunate age !) on which he evi- 
dently rested much of his reputation, because he 
had applied to their composition the utmost ma- 
turity of his thoughts. His notions of govern- 
ment were large and republican ; yet they differ 
perhaps as much from the popular schemes of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as from Fil- 
mer's patriarchal theory or the profligate slavish- 
ness of Hobbism. They are the principles by 
which Rome sprang up and flourished ; the cor- 
ruption of which changed her vigorous prosperity 
into splendid misery of decay. They contain the 
idea of a balanced constitution, with a prepon- 
derating influence of the higher ranks, as the 
best means offered by the experience of ages for 
approximating to that ideal condition of a state, 
which the ancients never lost sight of, the 
apio-TOKpaTia or government by the wisest and 
best. We meet no traces in what Cicero has 
written of his considering a nation as a mere 
aggregate of individuals on a particular point of 
geographical position, the majority of whom have 
an inalienable right to bind the minority by their 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 257 

will and pleasure. That venerable name, the 
Nation, implied for him a body of men, actuated 
by one spirit ; by a community, that is, of hab- 
its, feelings, and impressions from circumstances, 
tending to some especial development of human 
nature, which without that especial combination 
would never have existed, and fulfilling therefore 
some part of the great Providential design. That 
other word, the State, was not less sacred ; for it 
denoted the natural form of action assumed by 
the nation ; the mass of well-cemented institu- 
tions by which the particular character of its con- 
dition of feeling was best expressed in habitual 
conduct, so as to enable it to be continually, but 
gravely progressive. His attachment, however, 
to the interests of stability and order never for 
a moment induced Cicero to fora;et his Roman 
abhorrence of the kingly office and title. In 
everything he spoke for law and counsel, pro- 
scribing arbitrary will, I have said that he car- 
ried his politics too far into philosophy ; it is time 
to say the converse, that his politics were uni- 
formly philosophical. 

That important division of Ethics, which en- 
forces the moral necessity of self-restraint, and 
prescribes its most salutary methods, furnished 
17 



258 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

our author with a wide field for his rhetorical 
powers. This subject may, indeed, be consid- 
ered as exhausted by the ancients : the wit of 
man will probably say nothing finer, or more cal- 
culated to set this duty in the clearest light of 
reason, than has already been put on record by 
the heathen moralists. Many of them have sur- 
passed Cicero in the energy of their conceptions : 
but it would be difficult to point out any of their 
arguments for the power of man over himself, 
which are not touched upon in the books " De 
Officiis," the " Tusculan Questions," and others 
of a like description. It is true we find little 
that appears entirely his own ; he used with no 
niggard hand the stores of his predecessors, and 
hardly seemed to have much confidence in what 
he said, unless he could get somebody else to 
vouch for it. The Stoic, Panaetius, suppHed him 
with the whole scheme, and most of the details 
in his Offices. From the Epicureans, whose 
general doctrine he regarded with aversion, he 
seems to have borrowed those views concerning 
friendship,* which diffuse a gentle light over the 

* I mean their conviction of its importance, and earnest recom- 
mendation of it by counsel and by practice, not their theory of 
" ^i/lia 6ia xp^i-'^^i," against which Cicero justly inveighs. The 
friendships of the Epicureans were famous all over the world. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 259 

sterner aspect of lils other opinions. The inflex- 
ible followers of Zeno and Chrysippus were en- 
tirely devoted to the heroic attributes of human 
will : * they often mistook pride for virtue ; the 
selfish feeling that leads men to persevere in a 
particular course of thought and conduct, in 
order to prove to themselves their power of 
determination, for the humble and self-sacri- 
ficing spirit, which desires only to know itself 
as the servant of conscience and of God. Their 
KaropOcD/xa, or ideal life of rectitude, was entirely 
devoid of passion, and incapable (had they 
known it !) of virtue, as of vice. The later 
Stoics, indeed, were made of better stuff: a new 
light had then begun to shine in the darkness of 
the world, and the warmth of its beams made 
them unconsciously relax the folds of their " Stoic 
fur." " A/xa aTraOecTTarOv eivai, afxa 8c (jaXoaTopyoTa- 
Tov'' is the milder form in which the imperial 
sage contemplated his idea of moral perfection. 
Before the time of Cicero, the meek and passive 

Gassendi is so impressed with the amiable picture of concord, and 
pleasant intercourse, that he is ready to believe '"talem Societatem 
cjelestis concordife sinu genitam, nutritam, ac finitam." — De 
vita et moribus Ejncuri 1. ii. c. 6. 

* " Tr]v TTpoaipeaiv," says Epictetus, in the spirit of the founder, 
" ovSe 6 Zevg viKrjaaL dvvaraL." 



26o ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

affections were held by these scholastics unwor- 
thy of the loftiness of virtue. Fortunately, how- 
ever, he was not, like them, a philosopher by 
profession ; he was a Roman gentleman, and 
would not consent to give up feelings that 
adorned society, and constituted domestic life. 
His dialogues " De Amiciti^ " and " De Senec- 
tute " have a fine mellow tone of coloring, which 
sets them perhaps above all his other Avorks in 
point of originality and beauty.* They come 
more from the man himself : spontaneous pleas- 
ure from his heart seems, like a delicate ether, 
to surround the recollections he detains, and the 
anticipation he indulges. How grand and dis- 
tinct is the person of Cato ! What a beautiful 
blending of the individual patriot, as we know 
him from history, with the ideal character of 
age ! 

When we pass from the eloquent moralities of 
Cicero to examine the foundations of his ethical 
system, we find a sudden blank and deficiency. 
His praises of friendship, as one of the duties as 
well as ornaments of life, never seem to have 

* I learn, with pleasure, that this is also the opinion of one of the 
greatest of our great men now alive, — the Reformer of English 
Poetry, the author of the " Lyrical Ballads," and the "Excursion." 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 261 

suggested to his thoughts any resemblance of 
that solemn idea which alone solves the enigma 
of our feelings, and while it supplies a meaning 
to conscience, explains the destination of man. 
That he had read Plato with delight, we see 
abundant tokens, and his expressions of admira- 
tion and gratitude to that great man remain as 
indications of a noble temper : but that he had 
read him with right discernment can hardly 
be supposed, since he prefers the sanctions of 
morality provided by the latter Grecian schools 
to the sublime principle of love, as taught by 
the founder of the Academy. My meaning per- 
haps requires to be explained more in detail. 

Love, in its simplest ethical sense, as a word 
of the same import with sympathy, is the de- 
sire which one sentient being feels for another's 
gratification, and consequent aversion to anoth- 
er's pain. This is the broad and deep founda- 
tion of our moral nature. The gradations of 
superstructure are somewhat less obvious, be- 
cause they involve the hitherto obscure process 
by which there arises a particular .class of emo- 
tions,* affecting us with pleasure or with pain, 
according as the condition of our aflPections is 

* I refer to Sir J. Mackintosh's " Dissertation on Ethical Philoso- 
phy," (prefixed to the Supplement of the " Encycloptsdia Britan- 



262 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

sympathetic, or the reverse. These emotions 
are, in one sense, the strongest we possess, be- 
cause they are independent of our senses, and 
of external circumstances, and are only conver- 
sant with the som^ces of action : yet, for this 
very reason, they too often succumb to other 
passions, less intimately connected with the per- 
manent parts of our constitution, as active 
beings, but nourished by the changing acci- 
dents of sensation ; and, in this view, we may 
lament, with Butler, that " conscience has not 
power, as she has authority." 

The accession of this new mode of conscious- 
ness introduces a new kind of affection to other 
beings, compounded of the original sympathy, 
and of what has been termed moral compla- 
cency.* A notion of similar susceptibility gave 
occasion to that primary sentiment ; and now a 
community of moral disposition is required for 
the exercise of this secondary sentiment. We 
do not cease to be moved by the first: but 
we have superinduced another, more restricted 

nica,") the most important contribution, in my very humble judg- 
ment, which, for many years, has enlarged the inductive philoso- 
phy of mind. 

* See " A Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue," by Jonathan 
Edwards, — clarum et venerabile nomen, of which America may 
be justly proud! 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 263 

in its choice of objects, but attaching us more 
powerfully, because derived from a more de- 
veloped nature. Other developments of oiu' 
faculties will successively produce other simi- 
larities ; and determine, in different directions, 
our sensibility ; but since our whole frame of 
thought and feeling is affected by our moral 
condition, and "an operation of conscience pre- 
cedes every action deliberate enough to be called 
in the highest sense voluntary," * this great prin- 
ciple of moral community will be found to per- 
vade and tinge every sort of resemblance, suffi- 
cient to give rise to attachment. 

To inspire men with this vfrtuous passion, which 
however dispersed over particular affections, 
and perceptible in them, has, like conscience, 
from which it springs, too httle hold on sensa- 
tion to act often from its own unaided resources, 
was the great aim of the Platonic philosophy. 
Its mighty master, who " irrr^vio Stc^pw iffie^ofxcvo^ " 
discerned far more of the cardinal points of our 
human position than numbers, whose more ac- 
curate perception of details has given them an 
inclination,! but no right, to sneer at his immor- 

* Mackintosh, Dissert., p. 181. 

t We need not Avonder at the flippant Bolingbroke for jesting at 



264 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

tal compositions — Plato saw very early, that to 
communicate to our nature this noblest kind of 
love, the love of a worthy object, would have 
the effect of a regeneration to the soul, and 
would establish conscience in nearly the same 
intimacy with the world of the senses, which 
she already maintains with our interior exist- 
ence. Hence his constant presentation of moral- 
ity under the aspect of beauty, a practice fa- 
vored by the language of his country, where 
from an early period the same to KaXov had com- 
prehended them both. Hence that frequent 
commendation of a more lively sentiment than 
has existed in other times between man and 
man, the mismiderstanding of which has re- 
pelled several from the deep tenderness and 
splendid imaginations of the Phaedrus and the 
Symposium, but which was evidently resorted 
to by Plato, on account of the social prejudices 
which at that time depressed woman below her 

Plato (see Fragments and Minutes of Essays, passim): the lofty 
intellect of Verulara may well be permitted to occupy its view 
with the abundant future, even to the detriment of his judgments 
on antiquity; but what excuse shall be made for Montesquieu, 
when he coolly pronounces the Platonic dialogues unworth}'- of 
modern perusal, and is half inclined to wonder what the ancients 
could find to like in them? — See Leitres Persannes. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 265 

natural station, and which, even had the phi- 
losopher himself entirely surmounted them, 
would have rendered it perhaps impossible to 
persuade an Athenian audience that a female 
mind, especially if restrained within the limits ^ 
of chastity and modest obedience, could ever 
possess attractions at all worthy to fix the re- 
gard, much less exhaust the capacities of this 
highest and purest manly love. There was 
also another reason. The soul of man was con- 
sidered the best object of epw?, because it partook 
most of the presumed nature of Divinity.* 
There are not wanting in the Platonic writings 
clear traces of his having perceived the ulterior 
destiny of this passion, and the grandeur of that 
object, which alone can absorb its rays for time 
and for eternity. The doctrine of a personal 
God, himself essentially love, and requiring the 
love of the creature as the completion of his 

* When a general admiration for Plato revived with the re- 
vival of arts and learning, the diflerence of social manners, which 
had been the gradual effect of Christianitj^, led men naturally to 
fix the reverential and ideal affection on the female character. 
The expressions of Petrarch and Dante have been accused as frigid 
and unnatural, because they flow from a state of feeling which be- 
longed to very peculiar circumstances of knowledge and social 
position, and which are not easily comprehended by us who live at 
a different period. 



266 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

being, often seems to tremble on the lips of the 
master, but it was too strange for him, too like 
a fiction of wayward fancy, too liable to meta- 
physical objections. " It is difficult," he says, 
" to find, and more difficult to reveal, the Father 
of the Universe." * There he left it, and there 
it remained, until the message of universal bap- 
tism was given to the twelve. Few or none 
of the immediate successors to Plato were im- 
pressed with the religious character of his philos- 
ophy ; or if their hearts were conscious of a new 
and stirring influence, while they perused those 
sacred writings, their understanding took no 
note of its real tendency, but ascribed it to the 
effect of eloquence, or the Socratic method. The 
Alexandrian school indeed read with open eyes,f 

* In Timseo. 

t Many tenets, however, of the New Platonists were perversions 
from the orighial doctrine to serve an especial purpose. These 
factious recluses hated Christianity even more than they rever- 
enced its precursor ; and for the erotic character, impressed on the 
new religion, they would have gladly substituted visions of intel- 
lectual union with the Absolute, and complete abstraction from 
the inlets of sensation. The old Platonic language, out of which 
they manufactured their systems, was made use of probably by its 
author, as the best means he could devise for elevating the minds 
of his hearers above low and vulgar motives. I have no faith in 
those who fancy a scheme of his real opinions may be constructed 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 267 

but Christianitj- had given tliem the hint: and 
it is bejond contradiction, that, before the Chris- 
tian era, the only part of the earth's surface in 
which the Fii'st and Great Commandment was 
recognized, hardly occupied a larger extent than 
the principality of Wales, and was inhabited by 
a set of stiff-necked people, whom the polite and 
Avise of this world esteemed below their con- 
tempt. Upon this insulated nation how won- 
derful had been the effect produced ! In their 
singular literature a strong light was thrown 
upon recesses of the human heart, unknown to 
Grecian or Roman genius. Their thoughts pur- 
sued a separate track, and their habits of life, 
consonant to those thoughts, were unlike the 
customs of nations. In them we see a new 
phase of the human character, the same that 
has since been expanded by the Christian dis- 
pensation, and the loftiest we can conceive to 

from his works, or that it was any part of his design to improve 
mankind by the commnnication of psychological knowledge. 
When he relates a legendary tale, like that of Atlantis in the 
Timoeus, we do not suppose it necessary to suppose his credence 
of thfe story, but are content to take it for a beautiful piece of my- 
thology, illustrating and serving the main purpose of the dialogue. 
Why should we not believe the same of his purely metaphysical 
dissertations ? 



268 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

exist in any body of men. It proceeds from the 
recognition of God, as a living and proximate 
assent, constitutino; the course of nature and sus- 
pending it at will, raising up and overthrowing 
nations by particular providence, and carrying 
on a perpetual war for the salvation of each in- 
dividual soul. The spirit of holy love flows nat- 
urally from this faith, and fulfils the obligations 
of conscience. But it seems impossible that the 
unrevealed Divinity, however credited by nat- 
ural reason, should inspire such transports as 
glowed in the bosoms of Hebrew prophets, or 
dulled the torture of those flames and racks on 
which Christian martyrs were eager to expire. 
Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the 
Infinite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite 
humanity. But mitil this step has been taken 
by Almighty Grace, how should man have a 
warrant for loving with all his heart and mind 
and strength? How may his contracted and 
localized individuality not be lost in the unfath- 
omable depths of the Eternal and Immense ? 
Can he love what he does not know? Can he 
know what is essentially incomprehensible ? 
The exercise of his reasoning faculties may 
have convinced him that a Supreme Mind ex- 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 269 

ists, but the same faculties should have taught 
that its nature is perfectly dissimilar from the 
only mind with which he is acquainted, and that 
when he gives it the same name, it is with ref- 
erence to the similarity of the respective effects. 
If regardless of the limits within which he is 
bound to philosophize, he admits a little An- 
thropomorphism into his system of belief, yet 
he will hardly venture to consider a passion, re- 
sembling human love, enough to deserve the 
same appellation, as in any degree compatible 
with that independent felicity, which he ascribes 
to the Being of beings. How then can he love 
a Spirit, to whose happiness he bears no relation, 
and whose perfections, since they are vast, must 
be vague, embodied in no action, concentrated 
upon no pomt of time ? The thing is impossi- 
ble, and has never been. Without the Gospel, 
nature exhibits a want of harmony between our 
intrinsic constitution, and the system in which 
it is placed. But Christianity has made up the 
difference. It is possible and natural to love the 
Father, who has made us his children by the 
spirit of adoption : it is possible and natural to 
love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, 
like as we are, except sm, and can succor those 



270 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

in temptation, having been himself tempted. 
Thus the Christian faith is the necessary com- 
plement of a sound ethical system. 

Ignorant by his position of this fact, untaught 
by imagination and meditative feeling, the at- 
tendant Sai/xoves of Plato, to discern the tenden- 
cies of man towards this future consummation, 
the author of Roman philosophy sought a foun- 
dation for his moral system in the opposite hem- 
isphere of mind. He turned from the groves 
of Academus, and the refreshing source "/xaXa 
ij/vxpov vSaros," * to embrace the stately doctrine 
of Stoicism, or that of the Peripatetics, which he 
considered as differing rather in words than mat- 
ter. He left the heart for the head, sentiment 
for reason ; and placed himself boldly in the 
ranks of those, who, reversing tlie order of 
nature, have endeavored to confound the charac- 
ter of our reflection on feeling, with the charac- 
ter of feeling itself, and seek to account for the 
moral obligation of beings whose activity de- 
rives from emotion, by theories only respective 
of a subsequent congruity in perception. The 
great and palpable distinctions between the Epi- 
curean and Stoical systems are exposed on the 

* See the exquisite passage in the Phcednis, sub init. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 271 

surface of liistory, and it would be idle to re- 
peat an enumeration, so often made, and so fa- 
miliar to the most hasty reader. But they may 
be considered in a more universal relation, than 
perhaps they yet have been, as illustrating the 
different positions of human intelligence, with 
respect to religion on one hand, and philosophi- 
cal truth on the other. Some justice perhaps 
remains to be done to Epicurus, if it can be 
shown, as I think it can, that his inspection of 
human nature elicited results of great impor- 
tance to the science of mind, and conformable to 
the discoveries of modern analysis, although he 
did not perceive the real connection and place 
of these facts, and suffered himself to cover their 
meaning by a paralogism of specious simplicity, 
because his mental sight was more quick and 
keen than it was steady, his imagination not 
sufficiently delicate to inspire such pure wishes 
as might have kept up attentive research in the 
right quarter. 

It is important to keep in mind, while we in- 
vestigate the progress of ancient philosophy, that 
the province of metaphysical analysis was not 
(and before the Christian era, could not safely 
be) disjoined from that of moral instruction. A 



2/2 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

school of philosophy stood m the place, and an- 
swered the purpose, as far as it was able, of a 
national church. To trace the origin of emo- 
tions, and the connection of motives in the mind, 
was an object, which, however interesting to the 
lover of truth, yet was justly considered subordi- 
nate to the enforcement of moral duties, and the 
exhibition of the beauty of virtue to the heart. 
It is a circumstance of the utmost moment in the 
history of our race, and one which seems an 
admirable sign of superintending wisdom, that 
while problems relating to the original formation 
and secret laws of conscience continue to allure 
and baffle our speculation, its main results have 
never admitted of sufficient doubt to perplex 
those simple reasonings upon them, which from 
the earliest ages, and in the darkest times, have 
made the plainest form of address from man to 
man, for the encouragement of good, and the 
depression of evil. But it is clear, also, that tlie 
obviousness of these materials for moral argu- 
ment, and the necessity, felt by every good man, 
and felt in proportion to his intensity of medita- 
tion on these subjects, of using his mental ener- 
gies to inculcate the lessons deduced from them, 
must have operated in no slight degree to pre- 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 273 

vent or confuse a calm, strict, intellectual exam- 
ination of these all-important parts of our con- 
stitution, as objects of inductive science. Truth 
is a jealous, as well as a lovely mistress ; and she 
will never brook in her adorers a divided atten- 
tion. On the other hand, such is the awful 
solemnity that invests the shrine of virtue, that 
we cannot wonder if they who perceived the 
signatures of divinity upon it, were reluctant to 
examine its structure, and determine its propor- 
tions. From these premises, I think, we should 
be led to expect a more rigorous prosecution of 
the metaphysics of Ethics among those sects of 
philosophy, which have least claim on our moral 
approbation and reverence. We should not look 
for careful distinction, or close deduction, where 
we discover the ardor of a noble enthusiasm, and 
admire an exalted conviction of the purposes, for 
which our nature was fi-amed, and the dignity 
to which it may arrive. We should seek them 
rather among colder temperaments, devoid of 
imaginative faith, and susceptible of no emotion 
so strongly, as of the delight in dispelling illu- 
sion, and clearly comprehending the fundamental 
relations of our ideas. In laying down this posi- 
tion, I hope I shall not be understood to assert a 
18 



274 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

real superiority in this latter class of thinkers. 
The previous part of this Essay will sufficiently 
testify my opinion, that the man who is deficient 
in susceptibihty of emotion will make a sorry sur- 
vey of mental phenomena, precisely because he 
will leave out of his account the most extensive 
and efficient portion of the facts. On the other 
hand, one who contemplates nature through the 
medium of imagination and feeling, perceives in- 
numerable combinations of subtle emotion, which 
are entirely out of the other's sight, and does 
infinitely more to increase the gross amount 
of human knowledge than the mere logical ob- 
server. We must distinguish, however, between 
the principles of mental growth, and their pro- 
ducts. We are more concerned to know the 
latter, because it is the infinite variety of these 
which constitutes our existence. To this knowl- 
edo-e more is ministered by passion than by all 
the forms of dispassionate perception. But for 
the particular purpose of searching out the sim- 
ple principles, on which these manifold results 
are dependent, the requisite habits of thought 
are entirely different. The mind must, as much 
as possible, abstract itself from the influence 
which all associated modes exert on the will, and 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 275 

permit no feeling, except the desire of truth, to 
come in contact with the conceptions of the un- 
derstanding. Of course this will be especially 
necessary, when the object of research happens 
to be the character and origin of our moral sen- 
timents : for as none carry such authority with 
them, so none are more likely to act as a disturb- 
mg force. This view receives abundant illus- 
tration from the history of every period in the 
progress of philosophy ; but, as has been already 
intimated, the facts it embraces are most palpa- 
ble among the ancients, because Christianity has 
materially altered our situation with respect to 
ethical studies. That mighty revolution which 
brought the poor and unlearned into the posses- 
sion of a pure code of moral opinion, that before 
had existed only for the wise, and crowned this 
great benefit by another, of which we have 
spoken above, which is still more incalculably 
valuable, the insertion of a new life-giving mo- 
tive into the rude mass of human desires, could 
not fail to add freedom and vigor to intellectual 
inquiry, by the satisfaction it afforded to moral 
aspiration, and the certainty, or even triteness, 
imparted by it to many topics, which in former 
days had occupied much of the time and thought 



276 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

of philosophers. A little reflection, indeed, will 
serve to show us that the causes of hindrance 
are not removed, but only weakened by the 
change, and that ■ during some periods in the 
growth of Christian civilization, they will oper- 
ate with a force, nourished by the circumstances, 
and falfilHng the purpose of those peculiar epochs. 
But into these considerations I have not now to 
enter : I wish to apply the rules of judgment 
I have endeavored to establish to the orioin 
of these rival factions of the Porch and the 
Garden. 

The first philosoj^her who fairly handled the 
question of Final Good * (a question which once 

* Theories, which made pleasure the chief good, were not in- 
deed unknown before his time, since the school of Cyrene had 
expressly taught this opinion, and we learn from Aristotle that 
Eudoxus had similar views. But Aristippus was a coarse sensual- 
ist, like our own Mandeville, and the influence of Eudoxus does 
not appear to have been extensive, or his theory anything better 
than a formula for selfish habits. In the best schools of antiquity 
this question is little dwelt upon, and never started in the precise, 
scholastic shape which it assumed when dialectics became fashion- 
able. Even Aristotle, the great representative of the analytic and 
theorizing tendencies of human intellect, evades the real meta- 
phj'sical question concerning the nature of virtue, while his de- 
lineations of the habits it produces, are most of them excellent, and 
his collection of facts of mental experience invaluable, both as a 
specimen of induction, and an integral part of our sum of knowl- 
edge. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 277 

set In agitation has continued to excite the most 
contentious discussion, and has not yet been con- 
signed to a satisfactory repose) was the first also 
who upHfted a daring voice against the solemn 
articles of universal belief. Epicurus, who had 
laid his sacrilegious hand upon the altars of man- 
kind, was not deterred from his pursuit of first 
principles by any superstitious reverence for the 
unapproachable sanctity of virtue. Instead of 
assuming certain impressions as causes, before 
he had ascertained them not to be effects, he 
thought it best to begin at the beginning, to dis- 
cover first by experience some ultimate element 
in the mind, and then, returning by the way 
of cautious induction, to trace the extent of its 
operations, before he ventured to petition Nature 
for another principle. In this return he commit- 
ted some very important mistakes : but it has 
appeared to me that his beginning was correct, 
and his erroneous additions easily separable from 
the incumbered truths. When this eminent man 
commenced his reflections on human life, his at- 
tention seems to have been most forcibly arrested 
by one primary fact. He saw that man, besides 
the perceptions of his senses, has two distinct 
natures ; two distinct classes, that is, of mental 



278 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

states, in whicli lie successively, or simultaneous- 
ly exists ; the one " x^pts Xoyov," founded in his 
susceptibility of pleasure and pain, and compre- 
hending all the wonderful combinations of these 
elements from the simplest forms of delight and 
grief to the most composite involutions of pas- 
sion : the other, which is made up of conceptions 
of what has previously existed either for the 
senses, or the emotions, or this very conceptive 
faculty, and which, while it brings us irresistible 
evidence of our connection with something past, 
inspires us with an equal certainty that we can 
govern something future. He perceived (few so 
clearly) that to the first of these natures alone is 
intrusted the high prerogative of directing those 
states of mind which immediately precede ac- 
tion. Pleasure he found in every desire, desire 
in every volition ; spontaneousness in every act. 
Throughout the wliole rano-e of consciousness he 
could find no instance in which a conceptive 
state, a mere thought, stood in the same close 
relation to any voluntary process, which is occu- 
pied by the various conditions of feeling. Hav- 
ing made this discovery, that pleasure is the 
mainspring of action, he lost no time in commu- 
nicating it to the world ; but, unfortunately, in 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 279 

his haste to apply this j^rinciple, he coupled it 
with another, utterly unproved, and, as it soon 
appeared, not only incapable of proof, but pro- 
ductive of the most detrimental consequences to 
all who received it for truth. He asserted, that 
as Pleasure is a constituent part of every de- 
sire, so it must needs be the only object desired. 
The assertion has in all ages found an echo, and, 
while it cannot be matter of surprise that such 
doctrine should find supporters among the profli- 
gate, or the feeble, among republicans declining 
to luxurious ruin, or the courtly flatterers of a 
munificent tyranny ; yet even an habitual ob- 
server of those metaphysical cycles, in which 
human opinions have their periodical seasons of 
fluctuation, might perhaps be inclined to deviate 
from his " nil admirari," when he sees a fallacy, 
liable to such easy detection, reproduced and de- 
fended in some more favored generatioiis. We 
all in common conversation and common thoucrht 
presume the object of a desire, that which it ex- 
clusively regards, and by which it is limited, to 
be the very thing which makes a difference be- 
tween the quality of that desire, and the quality 
of any other. Now, desire can only be excited 



28o ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

by a th ought of the object ; * and as we can cer- 
tainly form a thought of our neighbor's pleasure, 
as well as of our own, it seems absurd to con- 
tend, that no such thought can be the exciting 
cause, and represent the external object of our 
desire. f The reality of benevolence is the 

* Strictly speaking, nothing but the thought should be called the 
object of desire. For desire implies futurity, and nothing future 
can actually exist, although it may be represented. If we wish to 
give an exhaustive definition of that internal condition, which we 
experience when we desire, we must include not only the sti'ong 
pleasurable impulse, together with the painful sense of privation, 
but an accompanying judgment that our thought is not fallacious, 
and will have a corresponding reality in the nature of things. 

t The idea of our own previous pleasure may sometimes coexist 
with, or form part of such a thought, but when we feel generously 
it occupies a small place, and in point of fact is never the part re- 
garded. The desire of happiness considered as permanent well- 
being, is still more repugnant to the presence of virtuous desire, 
which is always intensely occupied with some proximate point of 
futurity, beyond which it does not cast a glance. To excite the 
desire of happiness, or rational self-love, (amour de soi, as distin- 
guished from amour propre) in order to produce a return to virtue, 
is laudable, and very effectual. In the imperfect condition of hu- 
manity this is the strongest impulse to those heights which the 
soul is "competent to gain," but not "to keep." Upon them, 
however, " purior sether Incubat, et largd diffuso lumine ridet." 
The act of loving another excludes self-love. An eternity, then, 
which should consist in love of God, would imply, b}'^ the terms of 
the definition, the impossibility, not of feeling felicit}^, nor even 
of reflecting upon it, but certainly of desiring its continuance for 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 281 

corner-stone in tlie sanctuary ; " those who fall 
upon it will be broken." However a right feel- 
ing may have made their conclusions better than 
their premises, when they come to touch upon 
this subject the inconsistency of their theories 
will appear. But those, " upon whom it shall 
fall" — who have been fatally led by their spec- 
ulations into correspondent practice — " it will 
grind them to powder ! " " C'est la manie," 
says Rousseau, " de tons les philosophes de nier 
ce qui est, et de prouver ce qui n'est pas." Epi- 
curus, having commenced with a mistake of the 
latter kind, in assuming one thing as proved, 
because he had shown another to be true, pro- 
ceeded to deny, or at least to pass over, the most 
important fimction of our nature. No one, he 
said, could live rightly without living pleas- 
urably ; and no one pleasurably, without living 
rightly. But he omitted to say, that the pleas- 
ure arising from virtuous action is a peculiar 
pleasure, differing in hind from every other ; be- 
cause it gratifies a peculiar desire, which is not 
excited by the conception of any external cir- 
cumstance, but solely by the thought of pure, 

its own sake. That one sublime love would embrace the whole 
range of desirous susceptibility in the mind. 



282 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

disinterested affection, or qualities conducive to 
it. By tliis confusion of the pleasures and pains, 
dependent on moral desire, with others which 
result from extrinsic circumstances, and never 
therefore, can affect the essentials of our emotiv( 
constitution, although they may accidentally be 
connected with its operations, the door was 
opened to those dangerous heresies, which set 
up external advantages, as the legitimate aims of 
virtue, and discourage not only the refined en- 
joyments that rest in contemplation, but that 
large proportion of a happy life, which is com- 
posed of subtle and minute pleasures, accom- 
panying action and evanescent in it, leaving few 
distinct traces perhaps in our visible existence, 
but unspeakably valuable, because they commu- 
nicate a healthful tone to our whole mental sys- 
tem. In spite of these grievous errors, whose 
consequences ran riot through many generations, 
there was this merit in the Epicurean theory, 
that it laid the basis of morality in the right 
quarter. Sentiment, not thought, was declared 
the motive power : the agent acted from feel- 
ing, and was by feeling : thoughts were but the 
ligatures that held together the delicate mate- 
rials of emotion. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 283 

But the doctrine, which has conferred immor- 
tality on the name of Zeno of Cittium, contained 
no sound psyclLological principle. It was wrong 
in the begmning, wrong in the middle, wrong in 
the end. It was not less opposed to the Epi- 
curean system in its fundamental principles, than 
in its practical results. Impressed with the 
grandeur of moral excellence, and the beauty 
of that universal harmony which it seems to sub- 
serve, the Stoics thought they could not recede 
too far from the maxims of their irreligious op- 
ponents.* They protested against the simple 
tenet, from which such fatal consequences were 
ostensibly derived. " Not the capacity of pleas- 
ure," they said, " but the desire of self-preserva- 
tion, was the origmal cause of choice and rejec- 
tion in the human mind." They did not perceive 
they were beginning a step low^er than the Epi- 
cureans, without in the least affecting that axiom, 
which alone in fact could make this step possi- 
ble. For how can we conceive a desire of which 
pleasure is not a component part? There can 
be no desire in the mind, until some object is 

* Zeno came into the field before his rival : but there can be no 
question that the Stoical doctrines were much influenced, and kept 
in extremes, by the repelling force of the new opinions. 



284 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

contemplated as delightful. Again, Self only 
exists to onr consciousness as the common char- 
acter of a series of momentary beings. The 
proposition, I desire my preservation, includes, if 
it is not defined by, this other ; one of these mo- 
mentary beings exists in the pleasurable thought 
of a possible successor. Now, what has made 
the thought pleasurable ? Unquestionably, a pre- 
vious experience of similar states to that which 
the thought represents. A majority of such 
states, then, must have been attended with 
pleasure ; and any argument for the early origin 
and universal tenure of our appetite for exist- 
ence, goes to establish on a firmer basis tliat 
priority and universality of the obnoxious HSov^y, 
for which Epicurus contended, since it neces- 
sarily presumes that agreeable feeling is attached 
to the exercise of every faculty. The next great 
dogma of the Stoics was sadly destitute of meta- 
physical precision, however useful it might be in 
moral exhortation. Man ought to live agreeably 
to nature. The nature of man, they proceeded 
to explain, was rational, and the law of right 
reason therefore was the criterion of conduct, 
and the source of obligation. This law, they 
said, was imprinted on every mind : it was per- 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 285 

manent, it was universal ; it was absolute : there 
could be no appeal from a decision, which was 
the voice of unchangeable Divinity. Bj listen- 
ing to this internal mandate we acquire a sense 
of moral obligation, which nothing else can con- 
fer : for we are irresistibly led to perceive our 
position, as parts of a system, and the consequent 
impropriety of all acts that tend to an individual 
purpose, instead of ftirthering the great plans 
of universal legislation. It does not seem very 
clear, whether the supporters of this theory add- 
ed to it, as many since have done, the notion of 
an immediate perception of Right and Wrong by 
the intellect, or whether they derived the intel- 
lectual conviction simply from a reflective survey 
of the several bearmgs and relations of mental 
states, and a strong conviction from experience, 
that whatever holds good for one intelligent and 
sentient being, will hold good wherever these 
qualities obtain. These, however, are the two 
forms which the Intellectual theory has assumed, 
and in neither of these, I think, can its lofty pre- 
tensions be justified. To the first opinion, that 
of immediate perception, it may be sufficient to 
reply, that mitil it can be shown that our notion 



286 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

of Right expresses essentially* anything more 
than a relation and character of feehng, it would 
be highly unphilosophical to substitute for this 
simple, reflective notion, which we all under- 
stand, a phenomenon, perfectly dissimilar by the 
terms of its definition from every other mental 
state, and yet producing no effect in the mind, 
that might not as well be produced by those nat- 
ural processes which prevail in every other in- 
stance. The second view is undoubtedly correct 
in itself, but the " budge doctors " have taken it 
out of place. It embraces the result of certain 
mental combinations, not their origin, or their 
law. We come to know that we are parts of a 
system, and to perceive that additional charm 
in virtue, which it derives fi^om association with 
intellectual congruity, long after we have felt 
ourselves moral beings ; and it may be ques- 
tioned whether the addition makes much differ- 

* I say " essentially," because it is undoubtedly true that many 
notions have been so joined with this by custom, as to coalesce with 
it in the eyes of ordinary reflection. That of a Supreme Governs, 
for instance, and our duty to him as living under his rule^ which is 
clearly transferred from our observation of civil society. That of 
Utility, also, and of Beauty ; and these are more readily imagined 
by the mind, as being more connected with visible forms, than a 
feeling which has no outward object, but is terminated by a spirit- 
ual disposition like itself. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 287 

ence in tlie conduct of any, except perhaps the 
few whose minds have been exchisively directed 
to the peculiar pleasures of scientific meditation. 
But the vice of this celebrated theory hes deeper 
— in the jnotive of its adoption ; the wrong wish 
to obtain a greater certainty for the operations of 
feeling than its own nature affords, supported by 
the wrong supposition that this certainty would 
be found within the domain of intellect. " Man 
is, what he knows." The pregnant words of 
Bacon ! but this is only true, because he knows 
what he feels. We are apt to be misled by the 
common use of language, which sets reason or 
reflection in one scale, and impulse or feeling in 
the other, and appropriates a right course of con- 
duct to the former alone. The fact is, as may 
be evident to any who will take the pains to con- 
sider, that reflection has no more immediate in- 
fluence on action in the one case than in the 
other. But here lies the diflerence : reflection 
may bring up conceptions of many feelings, 
good, bad, and indifferent, so that the mind may 
choose ; but those who act from the impulse of 
one predominant passion without allowing the 
intervention of any conceptive state, debar them- 
selves from their power of election, and volun- 
tarily act as slaves. 



288 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

We are now better enabled to consider the 
question, whicli of these two sects, Stoic or Epi- 
curean, did most for the advance of psychological 
knowledge, and, if the foregoing observations be 
founded on truth, we cannot, I think, hesitate to 
pronounce, that it was not that sect which did 
most for the general increase of moral and re- 
ligious cultivation. The ardor, with which the 
followers of Zeno contemplated the holiness of 
conscience, led them to subvert the fundamen- 
tal distinctions of nature, in order to establish 
that adorable queen on what they considered 
a securer throne. On the other side, the soph- 
ists of the Garden, who unfortunately for them- 
selves withstood the great instincts of humanity, 
and turned the legitimate war against superstition 
into an assault on the strongholds of religious 
faith, had no temptation to neglect or pervert 
those observations of experience, which at first 
sight seemed to favor their misguided predilec- 
tions. They stopped too short, and they assumed 
too much ; but they pointed to some primary 
truths, which, though simple, were, it seems, lia- 
ble to neglect, and the nearest deductions from 
which it has taken many centuries to disentan- 
gle from error, the unavoidable consequence of 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 289 

greater laxity in investigation, prompted by the 
same anxiety to promote the cause of morals by 
confiising it with that of science, which in a dif- 
ferent, and certainly less pardonable form, threw 
Galileo into his dungeon, and still raises a fac- 
tious clamor against the discoveries of Geology, 
and any effectual aj^plication of criticism to the 
style and tenor of the Biblical writings. That 
in the eternal harmony of things, as it subsists in 
the creative idea of the Almighty, the two sepa- 
rate worlds of intellect and emotion conspire to 
the same end, the possible perfection of human 
nature ; that in proportion as we " close up truth 
to truth," we discover a greater correspondence 
between the imaginative suggestions, on which 
the heart reposes, and the actual results of accu- 
mulated experience, so that we may enlarge and 
strengthen in ourselves the expectation of their 
perfect coincidence in some fliture condition of 
being ; that the revelations of Christianity, while 
they approve themselves to our minds by their 
thorough conformity to the human character, 
appearing, as Coleridge expresses it, "ideally, 
morally, and historically true," afford a pledge 
of this ultimate union, and in many important 
respects a realization of it to our present selves ; 



19 



290 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

these considerations should encourage every man, 
who makes them a part of his behef, not to re- 
fuse his assent to a truth of observation because 
it is impossible to prove from it a truth of feel- 
ing, and still less to flatter mankind into an 
agreeable delusion by suborning a fictitious ori- 
gin to notions, which are not really less expres- 
sive of eternal truth, because they result from 
those simple elements and general laws, which 
the human intellect is invited, because it is en- 
abled, to master, but beyond which " neque scit, 
neque potest." 

In adopting the Stoical system, Cicero pledged 
himself to its errors, and became involved in its 
confusion . He was less dogmatical than his 
teachers ; thanks to the Academic bias : but he 
was also less subtle, less strong-sighted, and 
never clearly understood the question in debate. 
Justly incensed at the indolence and spreading 
immorality which characterized the Epicureans 
of his time, he commenced a war of extermina- 
tion against the doctrine of " Gargettius ille," to 
whose authority they appealed with almost filial 
reverence. But he neither did justice to his 
real merits, nor perceived where his fallacy lay. 
There is a singular perplexity in his arguments 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. ic)i 

on this subject, and a feebleness even in his decla- 
mation. We learn from himself that his antago- 
nists (not those who, created for the purpose of 
being refuted, figure in his dialogues, but the 
less easy gentlemen whom he met with in real 
life) complained loudly of his misapprehensions ; 
and the fretful spirit, in which he alludes to the 
charge, betrays a consciousness that it was not 
wholly unfounded.* 

* " Itaque hoc frequenter dici solet a vobis, nos non intelligere 
quam dicat Epicurus voluptatem. Quod quidem mihi siquan- 
do dictum est {est autem dictum non parum scepe) etsi satis Cle- 
mens sum in disputando, tamen interdum soleo subirasci." — Be 
Fin. 1. ii., c. 4. If we compare the elegant sketch of Epicurean 
philosophy in Diogenes Laertius, and the authentic writings there 
preserved of Epicurus himself, with this second book, we shall be 
at no loss for errors of omission and commission on the part of 
Cicero. For example, he puts the case of an extravagantly 
drunken fellow, who, he says, quoting the words of Lucilius, 
supped always "libenter," but never "bene." Therefore, he 
infers, the Supreme Good cannot consist in pleasure, since good 
and pleasure do not always coincide. As if it might not be true 
that all pleasures, quoad pleasures, are good, because akin to the 
" arapa^ta," sought as the final good, and yet it might be neces- 
sary to reject certain pleasures, not because they were such, but 
because their result would be a preponderance of misery ! Epicu- 
rus never confounded the subordinate and relative importance of 
ordinary pleasures with the indispensable importance of that 
pleasure, which consisted " vivendo bene." In the book De 
Senectute, we find " Quocirca nihil esse tarn detestabile, tamque 
pestiferum, quam voluptatem; siquidum ea, cum major esset 



292 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

However unsound may have been these first 
principles of Ciceronian philosophy, and however 
uncongenial to the elements of positive religion, 
they were far from exhibiting any repugnance to 
the fundamental articles of Natural Theology. 
A Supreme Lawgiver was the natural comple- 
ment of an universal law ; and they who ex- 
tended so wide the rightful empire of reason 
upon earth, could not fail to rejoice when they 
saw her seated, without opposition, and without 
fear of change, on the throne of the universe- 
That Cicero gave a cordial, if not always an 
mihesitating adhesion to the first article of ra- 
tional belief, may be fairly gathered from many 
passages in his works, in which he treats of this 
important subject. His intellect perceived its 
evidences, and his imagination exulted in its 
grandeur. It is not easy perhaps for us, who 
live in a Christian country, at an advanced period 
of Christian civilization, and have been familiarly 
acquainted with the great propositions of Theism 
from our earliest childhood, hearing them week- 

atque longior, omne animi lumen extingueret." — De Sen., c. 12. 
He is speaking of corporeal pleasure; but can anything be more 
absurd than to proscribe a thing altogether, because, if increased to 
an imaginar_v and extraordinary extent, it will tend to destroy 
another thing more valuable than itself? 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 293 

\j from tlie pulpit, and meeting them daily in 
some shape or other, in literature or conversa- 
tion ; it is not easy, I say, for us to conceive the 
silent rapture, and the eloquent praise, with 
which the philosophers of former time ap- 
proached that idea of a Supreme Mind, which 
had been the object, and seemed to contain the 
recompense of their solitary meditations. In 
addition to its natural beauties, there was this 
relative attraction, that it was unknown and 
supposed inaccessible to the multitude. The 
vast proportion of the race, who drew human 
breath, and felt human sensations, but on whose 
mental organization not much creative power 
had been expended, these poor iStcorat must be 
abandoned to live and die under the influence of 
prone credulity, perhaps of superstitious depra- 
vation : but it was the privilege of superior intel- 
ligence to offer a pure and reasonable worship in 
the " Edita doctrina sapientwn templa serena." 
Perhaps the Roman statesman was especially 
gratified, when he learned to contemplate the 
universe under the forms of order and adminis- 
tration. At least, this is the aspect he most de- 
lights to present to us. All created beings, 
according to him, form one immense common- 



294 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL - 

wealth ; and never lias his eloquence so stately a 
march, or so sonorous a measure, as when, close- 
ly treacling on the vestige of Plato, he announces 
the indehble sanctity of human law, and its 
foundations, not in blind concurrence, but in the 
universal analogies of an Eternal Mind. 

His arguments are of the description usually 
called a posteriori, and are exactly adapted, hy 
their clearness and their strength, to produce 
general impression, and to silence, even where 
they do not convince. He dwells on the natural 
relation which experience proves to exist be- 
tween the supposition of Deity and the tenden- 
cies of human belief; on the general, if not 
universal, custom of nations, ancient and recent, 
barbarian and civilized ; on the stability afforded 
by Theism to the conclusions of reason, the in- 
stitutions of polity, and the natural expectation of 
a future state. Above all he directs attention 
to the harmony of the visible universe,* the 

* " Esse praestantem aliquam, seternamque naturam, et earn 
suspiciendam admirandamque hominum generi, pulchritude mun- 
di, ordoque rerum coelestium cogit confiteri." — BeDivin., 1. ii., c. 
72. " Quae quanto consilio gerantur, nos nullo consilio assequi 
possumus." — De Nat. De., 1. ii., c. 38. " Ccelestem ergo admira- 
bilem ordinem ... qui vacare mente putat, is ipse mentis expers 
habendus est." — De Nat. De., 1. ii. See the whole of this book, 
especial I3' the eloquent translation of a passage from Aristotle. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 295 

order and beauty of the celestial motions and the 
subserviency of material objects to the conven- 
ience of organic life. How should the innu- 
merable and wonderful combinations, which our 
apprehension is tasked in vain to exhaust, be 
referred to an origin of inapprehensive fate, or 
void casualty ? How may a world, where all is 
^regular and mechanically progressiA^e, arise from 
a declension of atoms, which would never be 
considered a possible cause of the far inferior 
mechanism resulting from human invention ? 
It is the character of this argument to in- 
crease in cumulative force, as the dominion of 
man over surrounding nature becomes enlarged, 
and each new discovery of truth elicits a corre- 
sponding harmony of design. Beautiful as the 
fitness of things appeared in the eyes of Cicero, 
how insignificant was the spectacle when com- 
pared to the face of nature, as we behold it, il- 
luminated on every side, and reflected in a 
thousand mirrors of science ? What then was 
the study of the mortal frame ? What the 
condition of experimental physics ? What the 
knowledge of those two infinities which awaited 
invisibly the revealing powers of the micros- 
cope, and the " glass of Fie sole ? " Long after 



296 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

the genius of whom I write had passed from 
his earthly sphere of agency, " the contem- 
plation of an animal skeleton flashed conviction 
on the mind of Galen, and kindled his solitary 
meditation into a hymn of praise." * It was later 
yet by many ages, when the voice of one, to 
whom science is indebted for her new organi- 
zation, and learnino; for her manifold advance- 
ment, proclaimed to a timid generation, " that 
much (physical) philosophy would bring back a 
man to religion." Still nearer our memory that 
patient thinker — who laid open to the eyes of 
his understanding the simple governing law, and 
the interminable procession of subject worlds — 
Newton found room for the Creator in the crea- 
tion, and passed with ease from the interrogation 
of second causes to the exalted strain of piety, in 
which he penned the concluding chapter of his 
Principia. 

But to whatever extent our choice of materi- 
als for this argument has been enlarged, and 
whatever additional beauty and interest have 
accrued to their application, the argument itself, 
resting upon simple notions of the understanding, 
and an induction, which, though large, was yet 
* Coleridge. Aids to Reflection. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 297 

abundantly supplied by the earliest objects of 
sensation, may be considered as almost coeval 
with the intelligence of man, and had no less 
philosophical weight under the sway of Ptolemy 
than beneath the enlightened ascendency of 
Copernicus; no less dignity of reason in the 
mouth of Anaxagoras, when to his survey of the 
various phenomena presented by matter and mo- 
tion, he added the solemn and necessary for- 
mula of completion, " Accessit Mens," as when 
adorned in later times by the graceful industry 
of Ray, or the lucid strength of Paley. Let us 
transport ourselves, in imagination, to the con- 
templative solitude and lofty conversations ot 
our Roman philosopher, when wearied with the 
business of the city, or despairing of the republic 
(then in danger of forgetting her hatred of single 
domination at the feet of the most accomplished 
of usurpers), he retired to shady Tusculum, or 
limpid Fibrenus, or the shores of that beauti- 
ful bay, which " nullus in orbe sinus prselucet." 
In those memorable periods of seclusion from a 
world, which was tempestuous and distressftil 
then, and has not changed its character now, he 
had leisure to observe the wonders of natural 
operation, and to speculate on those final causes, 



298 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

which give them a higher meaning than the bare 
senses can perceive. He saw the earth covered 
with fruits from which man derived his suste- 
nance : the procession of the seasons, the alter- 
nation of day with night, bespoke a providential 
care for those vital functions, whose tenure is so 
frail, while their empire is so extensive. If he 
directed his eyes to the Italian heaven, we can 
hardly perhaps assert that the same prospect 
would be disclosed to him, which appears to a 
modern observer : for knowledge will vary and 
tinge, not indeed the perceptions of sense, but 
the emotions arising out of them, with which 
they are closely intertwined, and which lan- 
guage, never rapid enough to go along with 
quick mental succession, comprehends under the 
general expression, significant of the sensitive 
act. Yet to the mere sight that prospect was 
the same. The stars rose and set in their ap- 
pointed courses. The moon presented her vari- 
ous phases with a regularity that never deceived 
anticipation. The appearance of a wandering 
comet was too rare to dislodge the impression of 
design, while even learning, unable to explain 
that phenomenon, was content to lend its aid to 
superstition, and to consider the apparently law- 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 299 

less intruder as a commissioned herald of change, 
and " [)erplexer of monarchs." That which after 
all is the most important thing we can observe, 
and of which our perception and belief are neces- 
sarily more immediate than of anything else, the 
Mind itself^ furnished abundant evidence of pur- 
pose by its minute and multiplied corresponden- 
cies. Could Cicero think of his own being, and 
not find it full of mysterious harmony? Fear- 
fully and wonderfully he, like all of us, was 
made. Endless are the divers undulations of 
sentiment and idea, which pass through, if they 
do not compose, the sentient being : yet they 
fluctuate according to settled laws, and every 
faculty keeps its prescribed limits, without any 
variation, or the least disturbance.* 

* It will be right also to remember, that while the exact sim- 
ilarity in the kind of mutual fitness, which in so many dissimilar 
instances one thing bears to another, prevents our considering the 
argument itself as acquiring an}'^ accession of intrinsic strength in 
proportion to the growth of knowledge, the most powerful among 
the sceptical objections to its validity have increased in that verv 
ratio. Sextus Empiricus was a bold doubter, but he wanted the 
advantages of position possessed by David Hume. Until the anal- 
ysis of mind had been rigorously pursued by inductive philoso- 
phers, so many states of mental existence appeared simple and 
ultimate, which have since been shown to be compounded, and the 
abuse of the words Faculty, Power, Reason, Imagination, and some 
others, had so flattered men into the impression that they possessed 



300 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

But the " perturbatrix Academla " was not 
entirely silent. Cicero knew that, if he missed 

a great deal of proper activity in the soul, independent of, and an- 
terior to the actual states of which they were conscious, that the 
dependent, composite, and divisible character of the only thinking 
and feeling substance with which they were acquainted was apt to 
escape observation, or at least not to appear in its completeness and 
universality. When questioned concerning the origin of things, a 
modern Pantheist feels a repugnance to the usual answer, because 
it extends causation beyond the system, comprehending within it- 
self the subjective form as well as the objective application of that 
mode, and because it makes an imaginary repetition of one part in 
a system {i. e. of an effect seemingly organized and therefore by 
the argument from Final Causes justifying an inference of design) 
to account for the existence of the whole system, and to be itself 
the self-existent and designing cause. Whatever may be the real 
strength of this shaft, it will always glance aside from those who 
have grounded their assurance on the testimonies of revealed re- 
ligion. The supposed objector may by them be ranked in the in- 
nocuous company of Berosus, Ocellus Lucanus, and our good old 
friend in the novel, who was so apt a learner of their " avapxov 
Kat areTievraLov to Tzav." They will probably be disposed to recog- 
nize the hand of Providence in this, that the most necessary article 
of belief was supported in times of inferior knowledge by an ar- 
gument, which, from the constitution of the human understanding, 
is adapted to produce the strongest impression, and that philosophy 
was not ripe for the suggestion of anything even plausible on the 
other side, until a city of permanent refuge had been prepared for 
human weakness. But the self-satisfied Deist, who in his anxiety 
for the simple and the rational, has reduced to so small a number 
the positive articles of his belief, will do well to examine, whether 
the remainder hav^e all that absolute impregnability, and demonstra- 
tive clearness, which he seems so persuaded of. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 30 1 

truth by the way of free inquiry, " he should not 
miss the reward of it." * In the person of the 
Academic Cotta he has displayed that principle 
of his own mind which always rebelled against 
too much appearance of certainty. The dia- 
logues " De Natura Deorum," and the book " De 
Divinatione," are excellent specimens of Cicero's 
best rhetorical talents, his acuteness, his quick per- 
ception, and his legal sagacity. It would be much 
against my conscience to ascribe to him either 
wit or humor : yet there is sometimes an arch- 
ness of remark, and a learned pleasantry, which 
have not unfrequently reminded me of Bayle. 

The doctrine of human immortality is so ex- 
cellent a theme for the energy of declamation, 
and the triumph of debate, that, were there no 
other and better reason, we might on this ac- 
count have expected to find Cicero its eloquent 
defender. But his heart needed it, as well as 
his head. Struggling all his long and varied life 
with political and private tempests, banished by 
the intrigues of one, betrayed by the perfidy of 
another, slighted by those on whom he had con- 
ferred inestimable benefits, yet assured still by 
his own feelings of the sanctity of affection, and 
the intrinsic excellence of virtue, it was natural 
* Locke. 



302 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

indeed that a man, to whom Hfe had been such a 
scene of trial, should find peculiar satisfaction in 
anticipating a state hereafter, in which the in- 
ward strength should be greater, and the out- 
ward conditions less severe. There is no topic, 
accordingly, to which Cicero applied himself with 
greater ardor, and none perhaps on which he had 
succeeded better in communicating his own view 
to the minds of succeeding generations. The 
mode of thought in which he apprehends the 
subject, the expressions he employs, the figures 
and allusions which illustrate and point his argu- 
ments, have lono; since become familiar common- 
places, and continue, I suppose, in more cases 
than we incline to imagine, to give habitual color 
to the uncertain notions of " that mob of gentle- 
men who think with ease." 

In opposition to his general course of senti- 
ment on this subject must be ranked a few sen- 
tences, scattered through his works, in which the 
other, the darker view, suggests itself, and is 
not for awhile authoritatively repelled. Some 
of these dubious expressions occur in letters to 
Epicurean friends, and may be considered as 
accommodations to their fixed opinion.* Others 

* See Epist. Famil. 5, 16; ib. 21, 6, 3; ib. 4; ib. 21. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 303 

are the offspring of mental distress, and repre- 
sent with painful fidelity that mood between con- 
tentment and despair, in which suffering appears 
so associated with existence that we would will- 
ingly give up one with the otlier, and look for- 
ward with a sort of hope to that silent void 
where, if there are no smiles, there are at least 
no tears, and since the heart cannot heat, it will 
not ever be broken. This is within the range 
of most men's feeling, and it were morose to 
blame Cicero for giving it expression. The 
truth is, however, that a cloud of doubt could 
not but obscure the land of promise from the 
eyes of Pagan moralists. The wise distrusted 
this doctrine, because it was favored by their 
passions. The good thought the possession of 
virtue might perhaps be its own reward. It 
must be allowed that the subtle, verbal argu- 
ments, by which Cicero, in common with most 
other ancients, sought to confer an appearance 
of logical proof on propositions which can never 
admit a higher evidence than probability, must 
have seemed, when they did not happen to be in 
a humor for dialectics, as frail and unsatisfactory 
as the pretended demonstrations of their oppo- 
nents. What, for instance, can be more vague 



304 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

and sophistical than the curious piece of reason- 
ing which Cicero inserts in his RepubHc, as a 
worthy and dignified conchision to the most sol- 
emn part of that performance ? * Nay, lest any 
of the due effect should be wanting, he puts it 
into the mouth of an immortal being, who wishes 
by the communication of convincing truth to 
raise the inheritor of his earthly glory to a par- 
ticipation in his celestial repose. It was trans- 
ferred from the Phaedo of the divine Athenian, 
where it stands, I must confess, in rank and file 
with many others not more conclusive than itself. 
But I have already declared my belief, that they 
have done wrong to the memory of Plato, and 
have shown themselves incapable of the spirit of 
his philosophy, who suppose that in his Dialogues 
the main impression is intended to be produced 
by the direct statement of opinion, or any incul- 
cation of complete notions by the way of argu- 
ment. Admirable as the method is, with which 
the Socratic colloquists conduct their debates, the 
validity of the premises or of the conclusions was 
not equally an object of attention in the compre- 
hensive mind that invented their discussions. 
Not that he was indifferent to truth ; but he 

* See Somn. Scip., at the end of the " De Republica." 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 305 

chose to convey it dramatically, and trusted 
more to the suo-o-estions of his reader's heart than 
the convictions of his critical understanding. 

Two things are especially worthy of notice in 
Cicero's exposition of his views concerning flitu- 
rlty. The first is, that contrary to the opinions 
of most ancient philosophers, he promises the 
highest rewards to those who cultivated an ac- 
tive life, and busied themselves in political pur- 
suits for the advantage of the state.* In this 
we again recognize the leading idea of the Ro- 
man mind: hardly content with bringing this 
world into subservience to the four mamc let- 
ters, which had more harmony for them than 
the Tetractys of Pythagoras, the " gens togata " 
would fain have extended the empire of con- 
vention over those shadowy regions, which are. 
ever peopled with different inhabitants, ac- 
cording to the different dispositions of man's 
prolific imagination. The second is, his con- 
temptuous disbelief of the doctrine, that for the 
wicked " ^ternas poenas in morte timendum." 
There seems, indeed, to be no natural connec- 
tion, but the contrary, between this doctrine 

* See Somn. Scip., at the end of the " De Eepublica." When 
they get to heaven, however, they are to be busied " cognitione 
rerum et scientia." 

20 



306 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

and oui\ inherent hope of immortahtj. Seldom 
do we find an instance of such a behef ffain- 
ing ground, independently of positive religion, 
or analogous traditions. Accustomed to trans- 
fer our notions of earthly legislation to the idea 
of the Divine character, our thoughts readily 
ascribe remedial punishment to the moral regu- 
lation of the universe, but are by no means 
equally inclined to admit the infliction of abso- 
lute ruin as compatible with Supreme Benevo- 
lence. But it is not so easy as we imagine, to 
adjust the deep of creation by measurements 
of fancy, impelled by passion. " Omnia exeunt 
in mysterium," was the maxim of the school- 
men. That tremendous mystery, which in- 
volves the nature of evil, may include the 
irreversible doom of the sinful creature within 
some dreadful cycle of its ulterior operations. 
This view is indeed gloomy, and such as the 
imagination of man, for whom there are ills 
enough at hand without a gratuitous conjecture 
of more, will not naturally contemplate. Yet 
for this very reason perhaps it is a presumption 
in favor of any scheme, pretending to revelation, 
that it contains this awful doctrine. 

It does not appear that Cicero ascribed any 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 307 

proper immateriality to the immortal essence 
of thought. Distinct indeed from the concre- 
tions of earthly elements, but endued with ex- 
tension, and apparently with palpal)ility, it had 
no right from the character of its substance to 
infinity of duration. 

" As to Physics," says Middleton, " Cicero 
seems to have had the same notion with Socra- 
tes, that a minute and particular attention to it, 
and the making it the sole end and object of 
our inquiries, was a study rather curious than 
profitable, and contributing but little to the im- 
provement of human life. For though he was 
perfectly acquainted with the various systems 
of all the Philosophers of any name, from the 
earliest antiquity, and has explained them all 
in his works, yet he did not think it worth 
while either to form any distinct opinions of his 
own, or at least to declare them." 

From the brief and imperfect survey we have 
now taken of these philosophical works, some 
general notion may be formed of the rank 
which Cicero is entitled to occupy among the 
benefactors of mankind, and the services he 
has rendered in that great controversy betAveen 
light and darkness, the issues of which are 



3o8 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

deeply interesting to us all. We have ob- 
served that he writes under the influence of 
those national predilections, never absent from 
the literature of Rome, and compressing the 
individual genius of her children within limits 
required for her attaining and preserving a 
complete dominion over the manners of many- 
generations. He obeyed this influence, and by 
obeying, became a principal instrument of its 
extension. We have found him averse to orig- 
inal investigation, but studious of comparison, 
and more careful to describe historically the 
thoucrhts that had hitherto amtated the minds 
of men, and to transmit them in connected for- 
mulas to posterity, than to throw ofl" the weight 
of example, and try what results his individual 
intellect might arrive at by a fi-esh examination 
of particulars. It is as true perhaps as an 
epigrammatic expression well can be, that the 
Romans stand to their Grecian predecessors in 
the relation of actors to dramatic poets ; and 
Cicero may be considered as the prompter, sup- 
plying them with those thoughts which it was 
their business to embody in representation. We 
have seen how his rhetorical habits gave a turn 
to every exertion of his mind, and while we ad- 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 309 

mire the acute sagacity witli which all varieties 
of opinion are subjected in turn to the elegance 
and freedom of liberal discussion, we perceive 
not a few traces of that injustice, often latent 
in designed impartiality, and that incapacity for 
the due appreciation of truth, Avhich sometimes 
lurks in the apparent candor and good faith of 
an eclectic disposition. His honesty of inten- 
tion, and extensive o'bservation of the vicissi- 
tudes in human society, with the prominent 
causes on which they depend, have given to 
his ethical compositions a value and effect, 
which the reasons already enumerated will not 
permit us to ascribe to the greater portion of 
his abstract inquiries. But even these, al- 
though they abound with maxims of general 
use and importance for the regulation of the 
habits, and for the conservation of social order, 
were shown to be deficient in vitality, because 
pervaded with no principle of permanent en- 
thusiasm, sufficient at once to sanction the mor- 
al law, and to supply the strongest of human 
motives to its fulfilment. Nothing but positive 
religion can properly furnish this principle, yet 
the defect at least was perceived, and the rem- 
edy sought with earnestness, by the great dis- 



310 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

ciple of Socratic wisdom. In the absence of 
this requisite, Cicero endeavored to found his 
system of morality on certain metaphysical po- 
sitions, which he collected from the works of 
others, but which not only were erroneous, or 
insufficient of themselves, but were by him of- 
ten misunderstood and misrepresented. Those 
primary truths of Theology, which acquire a 
natural hold on a cultivated understanding, and 
suit the course of our common sentiments, 
without awakening those more complicated 
forces of emotion, which can only be set in 
action by a spiritual faith — the doctrines, for 
example, of Divine existence and attributes, 
and of a future state, were inculcated, we have 
seen, generally with warmth, and always with 
pleasure. But even here the Academy vindi- 
cated her rights ; and the mind of our philoso- 
pher was of that sort which cannot be satisfied 
without some belief in several things, or with 
much belief in any. 

Such then, it has appeared, was the philo- 
sophical temper of Cicero ; such the opinions 
which arose from its direction, and have exer- 
cised so remarkable an authority over the lives 
of many men, and the literature of many periods. 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 31 1 

Subject, like all human reputations, to a flux 
and reflux of public esteem, at some epochs he 
has been the chosen instructor of youth, and 
the favorite of studious age ; * at others he has 
seemed either above or below the level of gen- 
eral feeling, and has encountered comparative 
neglect. But these fluctuations have never 
materially altered the surface, whether they 
came to elevate, or to depress. General knowl- 
edge, clearness of expression, a polished style, 
and that indefinable pliancy to the consent of 
numbers, which is sometimes called tact^ some- 
times common sense, according to the greater 
or less particularity of the occasion ; these will 
always be passports to public approbation, be- 
cause they are qualities which may be easily 
appreciated by the great mass of educated so- 
ciety. It is impossible to deny that these are 
possessed by Cicero in an eminent degree. In 
reading him we never lose sight of the orator, 

* He was veiy popular with the early Fathers. Jerome's zeal, 
it is well known, brought him into sutfering. Augustin, whose 
books of anathema against doubters and Academics amply se- 
cured his person from angelic visitation, speaks of Cicero in 
terms of reverence, even while he rejects his authority, and plain- 
ly signifies that this rejection was considered a philosophical 
heresy. 



312 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

the statesman, the man of the world, and what 
diminishes his importance to lovers of higher 
truth, than he could teach, — truth absolute, 
single and severe, dwelling apart from worldly 
things and men, and requiring to be spiritually 
discerned, because it is spiritual, — is precisely 
that circumstance which secures his favor with 
the majority. But whenever there occurs any 
great shock of European opinion, any revulsion 
of ancient creeds and settled habits of assent, 
the consequence of long prevalent immorality 
and a general indifference to religion, an era 
of reaction is likely to follow, in which much 
intense feeling will quicken the lifeblood of 
society, and much will be counterfeited that 
never was felt. Without any purpose of im- 
posture, men will deceive themselves and others, 
and while they fondly dream that they are ele- 
vated above the multitude by the loftiness of 
their views and the originality of their impulses, 
they are often only inhaling the dregs of an ep- 
idemic passion for excitement ; and some per- 
haps may be lulled by self-love in this singularly 
illusive dream, until they are forcibly awakened 
by the pangs of a lacerated conscience, and the 
failings of an impaired understanding. Such an 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 313 

era, if I mistake not, is that in which we Hve ; 
and it is not at epochs of this description, when 
men are least tolerant of labor, and most am- 
bitious of the results to which labor conducts ; 
when the imacrination craves a constant stimulus 
with a morbid appetite, sometimes leading to 
delirium ; when the priment desire for novel- 
ties, arranged in system, is mistaken for the 
love of truth ; and, becauSe pleasure is the end 
of poetry, it is supposed indifferent what kind 
of pleasure a poem confers ; it is not now, and 
in times like the present, that Cicero, the sedate, 
the patient, the practical, will retain his influ- 
ence over the caprices of literary fashion.* Al- 
ready he is superseded in our public schools, and 
I might add, were it not for the circumstances 
in which I am now writing, forgotten at our 
Universities. The language of literature no 
longer bespeaks the study of those golden 
periods, which charmed the solitude of Pe- 

* A late writer, who aspired to the honor of reviving the Acad- 
emic system among the modems, as Gassendi revived the Epicu- 
rean, has left lis an elegant, though partial estimate of Cicero's 
philosophical merits. — Brummond's Academical Questions^ p. 318. 
Another exception will be found in an ingenious living author, 
who goes the strange length of setting Cicero above Bacon. — See 
Landor^s Imaginary Conversations. 



314 ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

trarcli, and enriched the conversation of Eras- 
mus. Undoubtedly the classical Latin, indebt- 
ed to the interest taken in Cicero's writing's for 
some of the concern that preserved its existence 
in times of profound ignorance, retiu'ned in 
some degree the benefit at that brilliant period 
of supremacy, which it enjoyed between the re- 
vival of learning and the prevalence of modern 
tongues : these, however, having gained ground 
for some time by hardly sensible gradations, now 
openly threaten to occupy the most remote and 
sacred corners of critical erudition. When it 
was absolutely necessary to converse and write 
in the lan^uao-e of the dead, it was natural to 
turn over his pages "nocturna manu et dim-n&," 
that so the student migiht become imbued with 
his sentiments, and easily adhere to his expres- 
sions. How far the fame of Cicero is indepen- 
dent of these considerations will be easily ascer- 
tained by our posterity, but must be a perplexing 
question for ourselves. I do not think it probable 
that the o;enerations to come, however different 
may be their ruling impulse from that which con- 
stitutes the characteristic virtues and vices of 
the present age, will restore either the philo- 
sophical works of Cicero, or that literature whose 



WRITINGS OF CICERO. 315 

spirit they express, to the immense popularity 
they once enjoyed. Some books, Hke individ- 
uals and nations, have their appointed seasons 
of decline and extinction. It is not in the na- 
ture of things, that books consisting entirely of 
relative opinion., or which present society under 
a merely conventional aspect, should retain an 
ascendency over public opinion when the fea- 
tures of society are no longer in any respect 
similar. But in compositions, of which pure 
genius claims the largest share, these accidents 
of place and time are preserved, as the straws in 
amber; nor need we apprehend that any lapse 
of generations, or augmentation of knowledge, 
will consign works, like these we have been 
considering, to the shelf of the commonly 
learned, or the study of the inquisitive anti- 
quarian. 



REMARKS 

ON 

PROFESSOR ROSSETTI'S 

" DISQUISIZIONI SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 



These remarks were originally intended to appear in one of 
the periodical publications. Accidental circumstances Laving 
prevented their appearance, in the form at least and at the time 
desired by the author, he has been induced to publish them in 
a separate shape; partly by the wish he feels to contribute his 
mite towards bringing into notice a work which, if it had been 
written in English, would have made, probably, a great sensa- 
tion; partly because he is desirous of entering his protest against 
those novel opinions of Professor Rossetti, which he believes to 
be alike contrary to sound philosophy and to the records of 
histoiy. With regard to any sentiments of his own, contained in 
the following pages, which may be thought liable to a similar 
charge of paradox, he will be content to shelter himself under the 
language of Burke, confessing that they are not calculated " to abide 
the test of a captious controversy but of a sober and even forgiv- 
ing examination ; that they are not armed at all points for battle, 
but dressed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful en- 
trance to truth." 



REMARKS 



PROFESSOR ROSSETTI'S " DISQUISIZIONI SULLO SPIRITO ANTI- 
PAPALB." 



" Maximum et velut radicale discrimen est ingeniorum, quod alia 
ingenia sint fortiora ad notandas rerura difFereutias, alia ad notaudas 
rerum similitiidines. Ingenia enim constantia et acuta figere con- 
templationes et morari et liisrere in omni subtilitate difFerentiarum 
possunt. Ingenia autem sublimia et discursiva etiam tenuissimas 
et catholicas rerum similitudines et cognoscunt et componunt. 
Utrumque autem ingenium facile labitur in excessum, prensando 
aut gvadus rerum aut umbras." — Bacon De Augm. Sci. 

In these words, not unworthy the calm wis- 
dom of Bacon, we have the large map of hu- 
man understancUng unrolled before us, divided 
into two hemispheres, of which it would be dif- 
ficult to name the most extensive, or the most 
important to general happiness. We could as 
ill spare the mightj poets, artists, and religious 
philosophers of the second division, as the pa- 
tient thinkers, the accomplished dialecticians, 



320 PROF. ROSSETTTS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

and the great body of practical men, who 
must be classed under the former. If, on the 
one hand, we are by nature fiepo-n-es avOpoiiroL, 
dividers of words, and the thoughts that give 
rise to words, we are no less creatures depend- 
ent on the imagination, with all its wonderful 
powers of associating, blending, and regenerat- 
ing, for the conduct of our daily life, and the 
maintenance of our most indispensable feel- 
ings. Between the two classes of individual 
character, distinguished by their larger respec- 
tive shares of these opposite faculties, there 
must always be more or less of contest and 
misunderstanding, which, however, only serves, 
by sharpening the activity of both parties, to 
produce an ultimate equilibrium ; and trim- 
ming, so to speak, the vessel of human intel- 
lect, promotes the great cause of social progres- 
sion. Few persons, perhaps, are indisposed to 
make this allowance, so far as regards the 
broader distinctions, such, for instance, as di- 
vide a Newton from a Shakspeare. The two 
peaks of Parnassus are so clearly separate, that 
we run little danger of confounding them. But 
there is a doubtful piece of ground where the 
cleft begins ; a region of intellectual exertion in 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 321 

which the two opposite qualities are both called 
into play, and where there is consequently the 
greatest risk of their being confused. Unfor- 
tunately, too, this debatable land is of the most 
direct importance to our welfare ; for within it 
are comprised those inquiries which regard our 
moral and intellectual frame, and which aspire 
to arranoe the chaos of motives and actions in 
some intellioible order of cause and effect. The 
history of philosophical criticism, both as applied 
to the annals of events, and as busied in abstract 
speculations, is for the most part a record of 
noble errors, arising from the abuse of that 
principle which leads us to combine things by 
resemblances. Yet it may be doubted, whether 
these errors have not done as much for the dis- 
covery of truth, as the more accui'ate inquiries 
of the philosophers who detected them. En- 
thusiastic feehng is the great spring of intel- 
lectual activity ; but none are animated by this 
enthusiasm without some apparent light to their 
thoughts, some idea that possesses them, some 
theory, in short, or hypothesis, which interests 
their hopes, and stimulates their researches by 
a stronger allurement than the unaided loveli- 
ness of truth. These leading ideas are rarely 
21 



322 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

accordant with reality ; but in the pursuit of 
them hghts are struck out, which fall happily 
on the minds of other men, and may ultimately 
prove of great service to the world. Even 
when, as in some fortunate examples, the idea, 
which is fearlessly followed through labor and 
trial, is found to correspond with the actual re- 
lations of nature, we know not how much is 
owing to what may be termed a contagion of 
genius from other minds, less favored in attain- 
ment, but not less ardent in pursuit.* Genius, 

* This is less true, or at least less obvious in science, where 
more depends on pure intellect. When we consider Newton mis- 
understood and misrepresented by Hooke and Huyghens, who set 
their own unproved hypotheses, concerning the nature of light, on 
a level with his sublime observations of actual properties, we are 
disposed to think of his genius as moving in a different plane, and 
meeting theii'S only where it intersects- Yet how various must 
have been the multiplicity of impressions, which made Newton a 
mathematician, a patient thinker, a discoverer! How many of 
these may have been owing to Hooke and Huyghens themselves ! 
Had they, had Kepler, and Descartes, never worshipped idols with 
glorious devotion, the authors of the Principia and the Mdcanique 
Celeste might never have led the way to the altars of true Science. 
The work of intellect is posterior to the work of feeling. The lat- 
ter lies at the foundation of the Man ; it is his proper self, the pe- 
culiar thing that characterizes him as an individual. No two men 
are alike in feeling, but conceptions of the understanding, when 
distinct, are precisely similar in all. The ascertained relations of 
truths are the common property of the race. This fact it is, which 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 323 

indeed, Is the child of Heaven, but a human 
child ; and innumerable circumstantial causes 
are operative on its nature and development. 
It is the consciousness of intellectual power, 
not the possession of right opinions, which agi- 
tates beneficially the spirit of a nation, and pre- 
pares it for intellectual discovery. Feeling is 
the prime agent in this, as in other human oper- 
ations ; and feeling is more susceptible of being 
moulded by error than by truth, because the 
folse appearances of things are numberless, 
while of the true we know little even at pres- 
ent, and that little continually diminishes as we 
go backward through the field of history. We 
would not be understood as encouramno; a care- 
less sentiment respecting truth, or as dissuading 
inquiries from the only sound method of phil- 
osophizing, which implies a constant distrust of 
hypothesis, and an incessant appeal to the rec- 
ords of experience. Hypothesis, we agree with a 

gave rise to those systems of semi-platonic philosophy which repre- 
sented Reason as impersonal, and existing only as a divine univer- 
sal medium in and around our individual minds. Such was the 
doctrine of many of the Old Fathers, in particular of Justin Mar- 
tyr, and Augustin; it was revived with considerable extensions by 
Malebranche; by his English disciple, Norris; and recently, in its 
original shape, by Mr. Coleridge. 



324 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

late eminent writer, should be employed only 
as a reason for trying one experiment sooner 
than another. But althouo-h it would be worse 
than folly to recommend darkness in preference 
to light, it is not foolish to remind men that 
Natui-e may have made this darkness subser- 
vient to the better distribution of hght itself. 
Man, indeed, must sternly turn from seduc- 
tive fancies, when he seeks sincerely for truths. 
His sublime course is straigfhtforward forever. 
But Nature cooperates with him in secret, and ' 
by a magical alchemy, which it is ours to rev- 
erence, not to imitate, can transform those very 
errors, against the intention of their unconscious 
victims, into new disclosures and enlargements 
of knowledo-e. 

The author of the very ingenious and interest- 
ing work before us, stands in need of all the 
indulgence, as he deserves all the censure which 
we have just expressed towards the tribe of per- 
tinacious theorists. He is one of the boldest and 
one of the cleverest among them. His style is 
lively, and often rises to eloquence, while the 
nature of his hypothesis lends to historical details 
all the wildness and novelty of romance. He 
has amassed considerable information on the lim- 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 325 

itecl range of subjects which regard his immedi- 
ate pursuit ; but he appears to want extensive 
reading,* and that philosophical discrimination 

* We would recommend him to beware how he meddles with 
ancient history. Speaking of the philosophical doctrines of Pythag- 
oras, he calls them " dottrina, onde nacque I'assurdo Panteis- 
mo." Whatever may be the absurdities of Pantheism, they can 
hardly exceed those contained in these few words. Pythagoras 
was not inclined to the Pantheistic system, but that system is as 
old as the world. It was articulated among the first stammering 
accents of Philosophy in the oriental birthplace of our race. 
When the Persians, somewhat later, began to indulge in high 
speculations, they invented a different scheme, that of emanation, 
to which the tenets of Pythagoras probably bore a close affinity. 
From him it may have passed into the hands of Plato. The Sto- 
ics adopted similar views. The later Platonists pursued the sys- 
tem of emanation into many fanciful, but coherent ramifications. 
The Eleatic school, contemporary with Pythagoras, but unconnect- 
ed with him, seem to have been the first Pantheists of the west. 
This is disputed by some modern critics, but the arguments of 
Xenophanes concerning the homogeneity of substances appear as 
strictly Pantheistic as any proposition in the Ethics of Spinosa. 
All is necessaril}'- one, he saj^s ; for the Infinite can produce nothing 
homogeneous, since two infinites are an absurdity : nor yet any- 
thing heterogeneous, because an effect can contain nothing which is 
not involved in its cause; therefore, whatever in the new substance 
differed from the old, could not be produced by it, but must come 
of nothing, which is impossible. Aftenvards, by a more com- 
pressed argument, he contends that it is impossible, vi termini, for 
Infinity to set anything beyond itself. It is curious that the acute 
deductions of Xenophanes from a theory of Causation, generally 
received until the time of Hume, should never have suggested 



326 PROF. ROSSETTrS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

which might be expected to arise from it. Nev- 
er was a more characteristic specimen of the 
second class of thinkers, designated above in the 
words of Bacon. He cares for nothing but 
resemblances, finds them in every hole and cor- 
ner,* and takes them on trust when he cannot 

themselves to those subtle thinkers, among the Schoolmen and 
their successors, who strove to erect a demonstration of Theism on 
the idea of Cause. They could hardly, one would imagine, avoid 
perceiving the fragility of their distinction between a thing con- 
tained formally, and one contained eminently. Yet upon the 
presumed force of that distinction rest not only the Cartesian argu- 
ments, but the celebrated chapter of Locke, " on our demonstrative 
knowledge of the existence of God." The school of Pythagoras, if 
we may trust Mr. Coleridge's account, ("Aids to Reflection," p. 170 
in not.) wished to guard against the errors of Pantheism by a 
strange application of mathematical phi'aseology, representing the 
Universe as a geometric line, not produced from a point contained 
in it, but generated by a Punctum invisibile et presuppositum, en- 
tirely independent of its product. It must be owned, however, in 
the words of M. de Gerando, (Biog. Univ. art. Pythagore,) " II 
n'est pas dans I'histoire entiere de la Philosophic un probleme plus 
curieux, plus important, et en meme temps plus difficile, que celui 
qui a pom- objetde determiner la veritable doctrine de Pythagore." 
* He cannot even resist their charms, when they are of no possi- 
ble service to his h^'pothesis, and indeed militate directly against 
it, hy showing how little trust we should place in such sports of 
nature. The following is an amusing specimen: " It was not ob- 
served without wonder, that Landino, who was learned in astrology, 
wrote these words on the subject of the Veltro, (in the first Canto 
of the Inferno.) ' It is certain, that in the year 1484, on the 15th day 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 327 

find them. The most heterogeneous elements 
are pressed into the service of his hypotliesis 
with ahiiost tyrannical eagerness. He has one 
way, and one alone, of accounting for everything 
strange or unintelligible, or doubtful, in the 
whole extent of history ; nay, for many things 
hitherto thought clear enough, but not agreeing 
with his fancy. A man must be careful indeed, 
in whose words or actions Signor Rossetti would 
not discover something to help out his argument. 
If two persons at opposite ends of the world do 
but chance to light on the same mode of expres- 

of November, at 13 hours and 41 minutes, will be the conjunction 
of Saturn with Jupiter in the Scorpion. This indicates a change 
of religion : and since Jove predominates, it will be a favorable 
change. I have, therefore, a tirm confidence that the Christian 
Commonwealth will then be brought into an excellent condition 
of discipline and government.' " The first edition of Landino's 
Commentary has for its date, Florence, 1481, that is three years 
previous to the event prognosticated, or, as he says, calculated by 
him. Well, in the very year and month marked out, Luther was 
horn ! not, indeed, on the 25th, but on the 22d of November. The 
hours and minutes were not recollected by his mother. ( See Bayle, 
art. Luther.) It is well known that Luther called himself the 
scourge of Babylon, sent to extirpate it ft-om the world: which ex- 
actly corresponds with the character given by Dante to the Veltro, 
who is to prosecute the she-wolf. The passage, in old editions, is 
wrhten thus : II Ueltro verra, &c. How would the astonishment 
of those who perceived this prophecy have been increased, had 
thev also observed that Ueltro h the exact anagram of Lutero. 



328 PROF. ROSSETTrS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

sion, our learned professor calls out, like honest 
Verges, " 'Fore God, tliey are both of a tale ! " 
For him there is mystery in the most trivial inci- 
dent. He would think, with Sir Thomas Brown, 
" it was not for nothing David picked up jive 
stones in the brook." It seems to us that Signor 
Rossetti would not be the worse for a few whole- 
some reflections, which seem never to have pre- 
sented themselves to his mind, but which might 
be gained perhaps from a few months' study of 
that most unprofitable kind of production, the 
commentaries on the Aj^ocalypse, or the divinity 
of the Cocceian school. He might learn among 
the embarrassing riches of interpretations, equally 
good in appearance, and equally erroneous m 
fact, that as all is not gold that glitters, so all is 
not art that seems so. The world is full of coin- 
cidences that mean nothino;. To find design in 
everything, is as great madness as to find it not 
at all. There is a laughing spirit in Nature 
which seeks perpetual amusement in parodying 
her more serious works, and in throwing before 
such observers as Signor Rossetti forms of appar- 
ent regularity, but unsubstantial as momentary 
shapes of uncertain moonlight. Indeed the imi- 
tations of life, which in the material world often 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 329 

illude our senses, may be considered analogous 
to these chance-creations in the moral universe, 
which spring up on every side for those who care 
to examine them. 

It must be acknowledged, however, the theory 
we are about to consider has its brilliant side. 
A secret society, we are told, whose original is 
lost in the mysterious twilight of oriental relig- 
ions, has continued, from the earliest historical 
point at which its workings can be traced, to ex- 
ercise an almost universal influence on the con- 
dition of the civilized world. These fiva-Trjpia, 
and esoteric doctrines, which in Egvpt, in Persia, 
and even in Greece and Italy, preserved the 
speculations of the wise from the ears and 
tongues of an illiterate multitude, passed, with 
slight but necessary modifications, into the pos- 
session of the early Christian heretics. The 
Gnostic schools of Syria and Egypt transmitted 
to their successors, the Manicheans, a scheme of 
discipline, which became more and more neces- 
sary, from the increased centralization of power 
in the orthodox prelates of Rome. As the 
usurpations of Popes and Councils over the free 
consciences of men became more glaring and 
intolerable, the spirit of resistance, which dared 



330 PROF. ROSSETTrS ''DISQUISIZIONI 

not show itself in open rebellion, sought and 
cherished a refuge, where hatred of the oppres- 
sors might be indulged without danger, and a 
pure doctrine might be orally and symbolically 
preserved, until happier times should return. 
The Pauliceans, whose opinions were for the 
most part Manichean, preceded the more illus- 
trious and more unfortunate Albigenses, in this 
mode of warfare against spiritual as well as tem- 
poral tyranny. The celebrated order of Tem- 
plars, so widely diffused throughout Europe, so 
considerable by the rank and influence of its 
n embers, did not differ from the Albigenses in 
the secret object of their endeavors, or the more 
important part of their mysterious rites. From 
the time of Frederick II., the Italian party 
of Ghibellines began to assume an equal rank 
among these secret opponents of Roman su- 
premacy. Whatever might be the distinctive 
characters of these three denominations, their 
symbolical language was sufficiently in common 
to allow of uninterrupted intercourse and com- 
bination. The rise of a new literature in the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries afforded them a 
new weapon, far more terrible than any they 
had hitherto emj)loyed, and capable of being 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 331 

directed to a thousand purposes of attack and 
defence. Since that fortunate event, we are 
gravely assured, the destinies of Europe have 
been in their hands ; and the great revohitions 
which have agitated us are almost entirely due 
to their indefatigable operation. No track of 
literature has been untrodden by these masked 
assailants. In poetry, in romance, in history, in 
science ; everywhere * we find traces of their 
presence. Their influence in some shape or an- 
other, has been exerted on all nations, and, it 
might almost be said, on every individual mind. 
The genius of Luther was no more than a pup- 
pet, infallibly directed by their invisible agency. 
In the Protestant reformation they attained one 
object only of their unwearied pursuit, the over- 

* The Alchemists are claimed by our author. The philosopher's 
stone was not meant to be a stone ; and if any were fools enough to 
seek it, they were but dupes of those, whom they thought their 
masters. Metaphysicians do not fare much better. The celebrated 
Raymond Lulli wrote all his works in gergo. The philosopher of 
Nola, Giordano Bruno, is ranked with Lulli, on whose logic he 
commented. We must crave leave to doubt whether any secrets 
exist in the writings of poor Bruno, except such as are made so by 
the obscurity of his metaphysical doctrines. Nor does his fate 
seem to require Rossetti's Deus in machina, the secret society. 
The author of " Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante " naturally per- 
ished at the stake. 



332 PROF. ROSSETTFS " DISQUISIZIONI 

throw of ecclesiastical domination. They re- 
laxed not therefore in the prosecution of their 
ulterior aim ; and in the revolution of 1789 came 
the thrilling announcement of a second, a more 
decisive victory. Still the earth is not entirely 
free : priests and despots still remain to enervate 
and to destroy: their labors, therefore, are not 
complete, and the Freemasons of this day, legiti- 
mate inheritors of the persecuted Templars, are 
still pressing forward * to the grand work of final 
regeneration. 

But, averting for a time our eyes from these 
splendid consummations, let us examine in detail 
the several methods of assault by which a few 

* It is remarkable how intrepidly the Professor passes over dis- 
puted points. To read him, one would imagine the connection of 
modern Freemasonry with the ancient societies was a fact uni- 
versally admitted. Yet many learned persons have been of opin- 
ion that, in its present form, or any nearly resembling it, the 
Masonic institution can be traced no higher than the times of the 
Protectorate. The Templars, with their mysterious Baphomet, 
are covered with still greater obscurity. We know no historical 
grounds for considering the Albigenses as an organized society. 
Some Shibboleths they probably had; for the persecuted always 
stand in need of such protection; but the complicated proceedings 
and extensive correspondencies, ascribed to them by Kossetti, 
appear to exist only in his lively imagination. His assertions 
respecting the Ghibellines are even less supported by historical 
authorities. 



SULLO SPIRITO antipapale:' 333 

daring politicians got possession of all avenues to 
the Western Parnassus. Here it is necessary to 
acquaint the inexperienced reader, who dreams 
of nothing less, that, about the commencement 
of the fourteenth century, occurred a great 
change in the constitution of these societies. 
Up to that period the symbolical language had 
been entirely of an amatory character. The 
love poems* and love courts of Provenge and 

* Our author is perhaps not acquainted with the Proven9al lan- 
guage, or he would hardly have failed to bring illustrations of his 
theory from that quarter. Indeed it seems so indispensable for one 
who seeks to explain the peculiar characteristics of Italian poetry, 
to examine diligently the early compositions from which those 
characteristics were unquestionably derived, that we cannot help 
feeling some surprise at the neglect of them by Signor Rossetti. 
He tells us, it is true, that the " Lives of the Trovatori " by Nos- 
tradamus are written in gergo, and cites, by way of example, the 
story of Pier Vidal, who was hunted by the wolves (i. e. according 
to the new lights, by the Romish party): but the poems them- 
;lves, although the originals of all the subsequent love poetry, 
nd in particular of many things strange, and some admirable, in 
Dante and Petrarch, are never quoted. Yet in these he would 
have found at least as many phrases and idioms, which, by skilful 
adaptation, might have startled the reader into a momentary belief 
in his hypothesis. The Albate, a class of poems, in which the 
word "alba" recurs at the close of every stanza, would doubtless 
have suggested to him the name and fortunes of the Albigenses. 
We recommend to his notice the Albata of Guillaume d'Altopol, 
addressed to the Virgin, "Esperansa de totz ferms esperans," &c., 
and that very beautiful one of Giraud de Bornel, in which the 



334 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

Toulouse, were vehicles of political discussion, 
of active conspiracy, of heretical opinion. An 

burden runs, " E ades sera I'Alba." He may make a good specu- 
lation also in a singular kind of composition (said to have been in- 
vented by Rambaud d' Orange, who is mentioned by Petrarch in 
the Fourth Capitolo of the Trionfo d'Amore), which consists in 
verses overlaid with a running commentary in prose or verse, pro- 
fessing to explain, but often obscuring their text. It is probable 
that the Reggimenti delle Donne of Barberini, and the Tesoretto of 
Latini, are composed in imitation of these. The following speci- 
men, in which the line is by oiie poet, and the paraphrase or inter- 
pretation by another, will please Signor Rossetti : and it must be 
owned they are obscure enough to be of service to his theory. 
" E poia i hom per catre gras mont les." In plain English, " And 
man ascends by four very slow steps." The comment, which is by 
Giraud Riquier, who lived towards the end of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, runs thus : 

" Ver dis: segon que m'pes, 

E que truep cossiran, 

Li gra son benestan: 

Lo premier es onkars, 

E'l segons es selars, 

E'l ters es gen servirs, 

E'l quartz es bon sufrirs. 

E cascus es mot lens, 

Tal qu'el pueya greumens 

Hon ses elenegar." 

" He says truth ; as I think, \\ and find, considering, || the steps 
are well suited. || The first is. To honor; || and the second, To 
conceal; || and the third, To do gentle service; 1| and the fourth, 
To suff'er well. 1| And each is very slow, || so that scarcely mounts 
it 11 a man without panting." The quaint style in which the Tro- 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 335 

ingenious chain of antitheses, so contrived as to 
suggest, in expressions apparently the most un- 

vatori generally designate their mistresses, sometimes employing 
abstract terms instead of names, as Lov Bel Diport, Mon Plus 
Leial, Mon Cortes, sometimes professing to name them only by 
description, will appear to the Professor a strong argument for the 
unreality of those ladies. Take, for example, the poem of Arnaud 
de Marveil, of which the following is an inadequate imitation: 

" Lady, whose eyes are like the stars of heaven, 

Out of pure dark sending a glorious light : 
Lady, whose cheek in dainty blushes bright 

Vies with the roseate crown to angels given: 
Lady, whose form more trances human sight. 

Than all who erst for beauty's palm have striven: 
Lady, whose mind would charm the unforgiven, 

And make them worship in a brief delight: 
I will not name thee; happy is my lot, 

That, tho' I speak the simple truth of thee, 

The curious world may read, and know thee not; 
For now all foolish lovers' lays are such, 

And thy due praise is every woman's fee: 
Else were it naming thee to say so much." 

We are, however, decidedly of opinion, that, although the antith- 
eses and studied obscurities, which supply to Rossetti's theory 
its only color of plausibility, are more abundant in these poems 
than in the more chaste and classical school which succeeded them, 
he would find even greater difficulty to establish his hypothesis 
upon them with any tolerable security. The facts with which he 
would have to deal are too stubborn, too historical. The Cours 
d'Amour were no secret meetings, but assemblies "frequent and 
full," at which princely ladies presided, deliberated, and resolved. 
What secret treason was intended by the Countess de Champagne, 



33^ PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

meaning, secrets of profound signification, or de- 
nunciations of bitter animosity, served to unite 
men of genius, however remote from each other, 
in the one great cause of a veiled, but terri- 
ble Liberty. When poetry, after its decline in 
Southern France, began to revive under brighter 
auspices in Italy, the same system was for some 
time continued. Cino da Pistoia, Cecco Ascolan, 
both the Guidos, and other foster-fathers of the 
new language,* rhymed after the fashion of their 

daughter of Louis le Jeune, when she made her memorable decis- 
ion, " En amour tout est grace; en mariage tout est necessity: par 
consequent 1' Amour ne pent exister entre gens maries!" Here 
•we have infideUty preached to be sure, but in rather a different 
sense from that which the Professor is hunting for, and one less 
likely to be offensive to the ga.y rulers of that time. At least we 
may judge so from the answer of the Queen, when the above de- 
cision was appealed against — "A Dieu ne plaise, que nous soyons 
assez os6es pour contredire les arrets de la Contesse de Cham- 
pagne?" History assures us, that the loves of the Troubadours 
were real and natural. They largely cultivated the practice as 
well as the theory of gallantry. We should like to have heard 
their hearty laughter at an erudite professor, who should have 
attempted, in their presence, to argue away the fair forms, which 
they wooed and often won, into shadows and types, and mere sub- 
jects of intellectual enjoyment. 

* It is among these writers that the new theory finds its best 
portion of materials. Their infinite obscurity, perhaps in some 
measure owing to a corrupt text, gives ample scope for arbitrary 
constructions. The lover of poetry will not here lose by adopting 
Signor Rossetti's interpretations, as he does in the case of better 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 337 

Provencal predecessors, and expounded their po- 
litical theories in the deceitful form of sonnets 
and canzones. It seems, however, that old 
Death, as they piously denominated the Holy 
See, got notice of these amorous pasquinades, 
and would have speedily succeeded in extermi- 
nating the obnoxious lovers, had it not been for 
a master-stroke of policy on their part. What 
does the reader imagine ? They threw away 
their love-tales, and took up missals ; went duly 
to mathis, instead of " brushing their hats o' 
mornings ; " in short, exchanged the symbols 
hitherto in use for others of a similar antithetical 
character, but grounded on the venerable mys- 
teries of Catholic religion. This change was 
effected by Dante. We have the announcement 
of it in the " Vita Nuova," the result in the 
" Divina Commedia," the commentary, for those 

writers. Some meaning is preferable to none. It is curious that 
Ginguen^ has said, as if by anticipation of Rossetti, " Ton pour- 
rait en quelque sorte les croire tons amoureux du meme objet, 
puisqu' aucun d'eux ne dit le nom de sa maitresse, aucun ne la 
peint sous des traits sensibles." That critic abandons in despair 
some passages of Cecco and Cino, which brighten up under the 
n^AV lights sufficiently well. See the sonnets " Muoviti, Pietate, e 
va incarnuta," &c. " Deh, com sarebbe dolce compagnia," &c., 
and some others in the collection of Poeti Antichi, published by 
Allacci. 

22 



338 PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

who have ears to hear, in the " Convito," the 
" De Vulgari Eloquentia," and others of his mi- 
nor works. On this account, and not for a more 
obvious reason, he is styled " creator linguae" by 
such of his admirers as were also of the sect. 
On this account he is represented under the 
designation of Adam,* both by himself in vari- 

* The chapter " Dante figurato in Adamo," is one of the most 
shigular in this singular book. In the " De Vulgari Eloquentia," 
Dante inquires what the first word was that Adam spoke, and 
supposes it to have been EL, the name of God. " Absurdum, 
atque rationi videtur horrificum, ante Deum ab homine quicquam 
nominatum fuisse, cum ab ipso et per ipsum factus fuisset homo." 
In the Paradiso occurs a parallel passage. Dante, in the 26th 
canto, represents himself as questioning Adam on the same sub- 
ject, who answers, " Pria ch'io scendessi all' infernale ambascia, 
I si chJamava in terra il sommo Bene EL si chiamo di poi." In- 
stead of leaving this among the many instances of recondite sub- 
tlety to be met with in times of darkness, Rossetti ingeniously 
brings, in illustration of it, an enigmatical epigram, usually as- 
cribed to Dante, though perhaps on no very good authority. 

" tu che sprezzi la nona figura, 
E sci di men che la sua antecedente, 
Va e raddoppia la sua susseguente. 
Per altro non t'ha fatto la Natura." 

The " nona figura" is I, the ninth in the alphabet. " Not worth 
an H," is a common proverbial expression in Italy. The "double 
subsequent " makes the Greek word " Ka/ca." Now the common 
tradition has been, that some one of the Neri faction derided 
Dante for his smallness of stature, calling him an I, and that 
in revenge this epigram was written. This, however, is far too 



SULLO spiRiTO antipapale:* 339 

ous parts of his works, and by contemporary 
(initiated) writers. On this account, too, his 
adventures form the subject of many artfully 
constructed romances, in which his name, and 
allusions to his poem, may be traced by many 
subtle indications. After his death, however, 
the old disguise of love poetry, never entirely 
abandoned by himself, appears to have been re- 
sumed by his successors ; nor when from the pen 
of Petrarch this derived still more extensive ce- 
lebrity and security, do we find that the other 
veil, that of Catholicism, was resorted to by any 
writers of eminence. In other countries, never- 
theless, and later times, religion was found again 
convenient for the concealment of irreligious 
politics. Many modern societies, the first grades 
of which bear a Christian character, led up their 

commonplace a solution for our Hierophant. The I, according to 
him, denotes Imperatore, and he supposes it to have been for some 
time the secret sj'^mbol used by the sect, until for some reason or 
other it was changed to E L, Enrico Lucemburghese, about the 
time that Dante commenced his poem " Pria ch'io scendessi all' in- 
fernale ambascia." The strange notice of Beatrice's character in 
the Vita Nuova, where she is declared to be the Number Nine, 
" because she was perfect, and because the Holy Trinity was the 
root of her being," seems to the Professor a corroboration of his 
view of the"nona figura." The same number, too, recurs fre- 
quently in masonic language. 



340 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

neophytes by degrees to a very different termi- 
nation. Nor is the practice unknown to recent 
literature. The writings of Swedenborg, ac- 
cording to Rossetti, afford an admirable illustra- 
tion of Dante ; and far fi'om being worthy of re- 
jection as the contemptible ravings of a fanatic, 
are in reality an interesting exposition of masonic 
ceremonies.* 

But uj)on what foundation, the astonished 
reader will inquire, on what foundation does this 
strange fancy-castle repose ? Where are the 
authentic documents which are to reverse the 

* We are inclined to put some faith in Signer Rossetti's account 
of Swedenborg. It has always struck us, whenever we have dip- 
ped into his writings, that they are intended rather as parables and 
satires, than anything more serious. They are quite unlike the 
heated conceptions of an enthusiast. Swedenborg is methodical 
and heavy, equally destitute of imagination and of wit, but some- 
times making clumsy attempts at the latter. We think it not im- 
probable, that his angels and spiritual worlds among men may 
refer, as Rossetti supposes, to some society of which he was a mem- 
ber. Perhaps, however, the account the Seer has left us of his first 
vision may be thought to furnish so simple an explanation of his 
subsequent reveries, that nothing further can be required. " I 
had eaten a hearty supper," he tells us, ^^ perhaps too hearty: and 
I was sitting alone in my chair, when a bright being suddenly 
appeared to me, and said, ' Swedenborg, why hast thou eaten too 
much?'" Instead of being bled, the simple Swede founded a. 
sect, many thousand of which exist at this day, and in this coun- 
try! 



SULLO SPIRIT ANTIPAPALE." 341 

decisions of history? Where the credible wit- 
nesses, whom we must beheve henceforward in 
contradiction to all our usual media of informa- 
tion ? It is incumbent certainly on the learned 
Professor to answer these questions without 
delay, that we may at least have something to 
believe in compensation for wdiat he has torn 
from us. If we are indeed to chancre the old 
scholastic maxim into " De apparentibus et de 
non existentibus eadem est ratio," let us at least 
be assured that these substitutions of Signor 
Rossetti are not illusory also. At present we 
feel the same sort of impression from his work 
which has sometimes been produced in us by 
certain wonderful effusions of philosophy in a 
neighboring country, where Reality and actual 
Existence are held cheap, and considered as 
uncertain shadows, in comparison with some 
mysterious essences of Possibility and Incompre- 
hensibleness, which lie close bottled up, at the 
bottom* of all our thoughts and sensations ! 

* Hegel, -who died last year of Cholera at Berlin, has been for 
some years undoubted occupant of the philosophic throne, at least 
in the North of Germany. The Southern states still revere the 
authority of Schelling, from whom Hegel, having been his disciple, 
thought proper to revolt. He occupied himself much in finding a 
solution to a problem of his own, " How to deduce the Universe 



342 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

But here at all events we are on plain ground of 
human life. We demand that the consideration 
be shown us, for which we are to give up the 
inheritances of common belief, and to swear " in 
verba magistri," that nothing is as it seems in 
the whole course of history. We are far from 
denying that an undercurrent may be discovered 
of much greater magnitude and importance than 
has hitherto been imagined ; but we require 
positive proof of its existence in the first place, 
and afterwards of every additional inch of 
ground assigned to its progress. 

In such investigations as these, fi'om their 
very nature ambiguous and perplexed, the great- 
est delicacy of discrimination, and the most cau- 
tious suspense of judgment, are absolutely neces- 

from the Absolute Zero." We are not aware that he found one to 
his satisfaction ; one of his followers, perhaps, was more successful, 
who published a pamphlet to prove that " the historical Jesus was 
a type of the non-existence of the Deity! " The Hegelites say, 
that the most important object of Philosophy is to trace the 
boundaries between Wesenheit or the Ground of Being, and Un- 
wesenheit, or the Ground of Not Being. If they could succeed in 
this, the}' think they would carry all before them. AVe dare say 
they are right in so thinking; but the first step is rather expensive. 
Some of them enlarge upon a fundamental principle of Dunkelheit, 
or Darkness, which they seem inclined to deify, and indeed every 
syllable of their writings may be considered an appropriate hom- 
age to such a power. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 343 

sary, or we are lost at once in the wildest 
dreams. But the gentleman, with whom we 
have to do, never stops, never deliberates, never 
doubts. On he drives, in full conviction that all 
his past reading is in his favor, and full faith 
that all his further reading will confirm it. In- 
deed his trust in what Providence will do for 
him is highly edifying. If he has not yet dis- 
covered a single passage even in an obscure 
author, which by due wrenching of construction 
might be brought in evidence for some favorite 
notion, he considers that notion no less demon- 
strated, than if he had produced the concurrent 
testimony of all ancient and modern writers. 
The possible future is to him as secure as the 
actual past. 

His great proposition, on the truth of which 
almost everything depends, that this * Setta 

* " Before the time of Dante, the Gay Science had established 
its extensiv'e fabric of illusory language on two words, Amore, 
Odio, from which branched out a long series of antitheses. King- 
dom of Love, Kingdom of Hate; pleasure, pain; truth, error; light, 
darkness; sun, moon; life, death; right, left; fire, ice; garden, 
desert; courtesy, rusticity; nobleness, baseness; virtue, vice; in- 
telligence, stupidity; lambs, wolves; hill, valley, &c. &c. Hence 
was derived the name Setta d' Amore. ' Sospiri,' signified verses 
in gergo. ' Cuore ' indicated the great Secret. Dante added to 
the list of symbols those of God and Lucifer ; Christ and Anti- 



344 PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

d'Amore did really exist, is not, he confesses it, 
established by proof in the present volume. For 
the present, he says, we must content ourselves 
with an hypothesis : abundant documents exist, 
enough to make a large book, by which the mat- 
ter can be set beyond all doubt. Strange that 
he should not have thought it expedient to pro- 
duce these documents, if they are in his pos- 
session, and not merely assured to him by the 
strong faith to which we have alluded I Strange, 
that he should labor through half this volume to 
establish the existence of this sect by laboriously 
collected parallelisms of different passages in 
unconnected poems, and not dispense with all 
this unnecessary trouble by the simple process of 
proving the fact in the first instance ! Are his 
lips sealed perhaps by a masonic oath ? This 
can hardly be, for he promises to communicate 
these secrets at no distant period ; and in several 
parts of his book he gives us to understand that 
his information on the masonic rites is entirely 
derived from published works on the subject, or 
from such other means as are either lawful, or at 

Christ; Angels and Demons; Paradise and Hell; Jerusalem and 
Bab3don ; the Lady of Modesty and the Lady of Harlotry; with 
several others of the same kind." — Rossettf, cap. 13. 



SULLO SPIRIT O ANTIPAPALEr 345 

least do not subject liim to penalties for indis- 
cretion. But if he lias not the fate of the unfor- 
tunate Bracciarone before his eye,* of what can 
he be afraid ? Truly, we apprehend his reading 
on these matters has led him to form a greater 
partiality for the cunning of the Fo'x^ than for 
the generous, breast-opening Pelican^ or the 
simplicity of the superior Dove. If indeed, the 
coincidences he has hitherto offered to our notice 
are the only proofs he can adduce, we cannot 
consider them as decisive or substantial. We 
do not deny that they are very curious and 
interestino;. We know not whether Signor 
Rossetti has employed more art in assembling 
them than we have been able to detect ; f but, 
as they stand, they certainly justify a presump- 
tion, that something beyond what meets the ear 
was intended by some of the writers, w^hose 
works he examines. Still, we are a long way 

* Bracciarone, according to our author, was subjected to perse- 
cution for betraying the Chiave, or Secret of the Sect. 

t Occasionally we have found his quotations unfaithful. It is 
not fair to extract part of a sentence from " The Convito," in 
which Dante derives the word " Cortesi " from the word " Corte," 
without paying the slightest attention to the clause immediately 
following, in which he declares himself to mean the usage of an- 
cient Courts, and not as such as then flourished. 



346 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

from the " imaginations all compact," which he 
would force on our acceptance. 

We are not entitled to assume identity of pur- 
pose, wherever we find identity of expression. 
Because certain societies, existing at different 
epochs, make use of similar metaphors in order 
to designate their secret proceedings, it will not 
follow that those proceedings are identical, or 
that any connection exists between them beyond 
that of mere exterior language. Similar circum- 
stances are constantly producing similar results. 
Now all secret societies are, in respect of their 
secrecy, similarly situated ; all have the same 
necessity of expressing, in their symbolical lan- 
guage, that relation of contrast to the uniniti- 
ated, on which their constitution depends. It is 
natural, therefore, that all should seek for meta- 
phorical analogies to indicate this contrast ; and 
those analogies will be sought in the contrasts of 
outward nature, — in the opposition, for instance, 
of light to darkness, warmth to cold, life to death, 
and all the others which Signor Rossetti con- 
siders as affording decisive proofs of affiliation, 
whenever they occur in the text-books of sepa- 
rate societies. Meanwhile, masonic lodges, even 
in the view of our ingenious author, do not oc- 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 347 

ciipy the whole of God's earth. Tlie ordinary 
passions of our nature continue in operation, 
without much regard to them. But these ordi- 
nary passions require the occasional use of meta- 
phors ; and as the prominent objects in the ma- 
terial universe are always ready at hand, it will 
sometimes happen that the same comparisons 
may be employed by persons who never dreamed 
of secret conspiracies or initiatory rites. Still 
less, therefore, is the occurrence of phrases in a 
common book resembling those in some symbolic 
exposition, any evidence of necessary connection 
between things so widely distant. The novice, 
who has passed through his terrifjang ordeal in 
the open grave or coffin, may be told that he 
rises to new life in the secluded privacies of his 
lodge ; but it by no means follows that Dante 
must allude to this circumstance when he uses 
the same figure. It may happen that more than 
one Italian poet fixes some leading incident of 
his story at the first hour of the day, simply be- 
cause that time of morning has a beautiful, and 
therefore a poetical character ; but there seems 
no need of recurring for a fi^irther explanation 
of so intelligible a fact to some mystical question 
in a catechism of American masons. It may 



348 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

happen again that the solemnity and rehgious 
importance attached by Platonic lovers to all cir- 
cumstances connected with their passion, may 
have led them to assign to the festivals of the 
Christian church* any prominent event in the 
lives of their ladies. Or accident and imitation 
may well be conceived to account for such re- 
semblances ; nor should it more surprise us to 
find some secret transactions of the Templars 
dated on the same days which this or that poet 
may have selected, than to find an English law 

* When Signer Rossetti proceeds to examine the Romantic Po- 
ets, he will not forget to put in requisition that Canzone, in which 
Ariosto, in a delightful strain between banter and solemnity, tells 
us how he first met his mistress on " The summer festival of good 
St. John," and how amidst the dances and banquets, the music 
and processions, the streets and theatres crowded with lovely forms, 
yet, "in so fair a place, he gazed on nothing fairer than her face." 
Midsummer's day, the feast of St. John, is still a great time of 
rejoicing among the Freemasons. Signor Rossetti can hardly have 
failed to remark this proof of his theory. But we really expect 
his thanks for suggesting to him a passage in Rousseau's " Con- 
fessions," which, we doubt not, in his hands may prove a key to 
all that was inexplicable in the character of that unfortunate man, 
besides throwing much light on the stormy times of the Revolution. 
Just before the description of his adventure with Mademoiselles 
Gallej' and Graffenreid, a description on which are lavished all the 
charms of an inimitable style, occurs this important remark, more 
valuable for our Professor than all the eloquence and sentiment in 
the world: '■'■Cetait la semaine apices le St. Jean.^' 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 349 

term dating from Easter, or English rents paid 
at Lady-day. We do not, however, mean to 
represent all Signer Kossetti's instances of coin- 
cidence as worth no more than these we have 
mentioned. His proof is of a cumulative char- 
acter, and injustice is done to it by citing 
detached parts. We will proceed to examine 
rather more closely his theory respecting Dante, 
because this is the most important portion of his 
work, and will afford the best specimen of his 
mode of inductive reasoning. 

In the " Comento Analitico," published by 
Rossetti in 1826-7, he broached a comparatively 
small number of paradoxes, to those contained in 
the present disquisition, yet amply sufficient to 
startle the public, and to provoke no very lenient 
criticism. Wincing under the attacks he has 
sustained, our bold adventurer does not, how- 
ever, retreat from his post ; on the contrary, he 
makes an advance, intending to carry the ene- 
my's camp by a coup de main, or to terrify them 
at least to a dislodgement, by threats of still more 
intrepid assaults for the future. The " Comen- 
to " represented Dante as a politician, whose 
hatred to the Papal party induced him to devise 
a great political allegory, of which his principal 



350 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

poem consists ; but that he was averse to Cath- 
olic doctrines was not there asserted. Rossetti's 
defence of himself for this excess of caution, since 
even then he allows he knew the whole com- 
plexion of the case, is rather amusing.* Now, 
however, the veil is thrown off. Dante is not 
only an Imperialist, but a Freemason ; not only 
an opponent of the temporal power of Rome, but 
an uncompromising Reformer, whose views on 
religious subjects were anything but Catholic. 
Petrarch, Boccaccio, and a host of others less il- 
lustrious, were to the full as heretical ; and in 
his capacity of a faithful son of the Church, the 
Professor makes some faint show of being scan- 
dalized at the impieties which his industry has 
■ discovered. This improved theory has, it cannot 
be denied, one important advantage over its o^vn 
-embryo condition. While political hostility was 
alleged as the only motive which could actuate 
Dante and Petrarch in assuming these strange 
disguises, it was not easy to answer the obvious 
question, "Why should these men have taken 
such infinite pains to say in secret what on num- 
berless occasions they had said in public ?" The 
poet who wrote that bitter line " La dove Cristo 

* See the last chapter. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 351 

tutto di si merca," and many others not less 
plain spoken, could hardly have thought it neces- 
sary to mask his sentiments. All his writino-s 
amply confirm the energetic declaration he has 
left us concerning his own character, 

" Che s'io al Vero son tlmido amico, 
Tenio di perder vita tra coloro, 
Che questo tempo chiameranno antico." 

If, however, as we are now informed, the spirit- 
ual supremacy of Rome w\as no less ahhorred 
than her usurped temporalities, some answer 
may be found to an objection otherwise so fatal. 
Some motive certainly in this case would appear, 
for resorting, in the terrible days of the Inquisi- 
tion, to these wonderful shifts and subtleties. 
Still, we do not see how Signor Kossetti strength- 
ens his cause by bringing together instances of 
strong language openly used against Rome, since 
the more he shows to have been uttered without 
disguise, the less shall we be inclined to admit its 
necessity. In the direct argument he altogether 
fails. We see no reason to suppose that the 
GhibelHne party, as a body, entertained infidel 
sentiments ; and certainly none whatever that 
Dante, in particular, was not a submissive son ot 
the Church. Rossetti may make some converts, 



352 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

but there is one who will never come over to his 
opinion — the Muse of History.* She tells us 
that the Bianchi, of whom Dante was a leader, 
and with whom he suffered, were not originally 
Ghibellmes. They were a division of the Guelf 
party. It is notorious that Dante fought in his 
youth, against the Ghibelline Fuorusciti, and his 
use of " vostri," in the dialogue with Farinata, 
sufficiently indicates to what party he considered 
himself naturally to belong. When the force of 
circumstances drove the Bianchi into a closer 
connection with the Imperialists, there is no 
ground for supposing that they offered in sacri- 
fice to Caesar all the prejudices in which they 
had been educated. At all events, until the 
injustice of the Neri rulers had affected the alli- 
ance of their new with their ancient enemies,f it 

* The Cancellieri Bianchi and Cancellieri Neri, were originally 
factions at Pistoia. Gradually these names migrated to the capi- 
tal; and the partisans of the Cerchl began to be denominated 
White, while Corso's followers took pride in being Black. 

t Let it be remembered, too, that Dante married a Donati, and 
that, when invested with authority as one of the Priori, he im- 
partially exercised the restrictive powers of the law against the 
leaders of both factions. Posterity would have heard nothing of 
his Ghibellinism, had not the ill-omened presence of Charles de 
Valois given power and a desperate mind to the adherents of 
Donati. See the narrative of Dino Compagni, the best authority 
on these subjects. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 353 

is utterly improbable that Dante and those of his 
faction were versed in all the wild words and 
daring opinions, which might be current in the 
Emperor's coui't. Yet Rossetti would have us 
believe that before the events occurred which 
detached him finally from the Roman party, he 
was already as deep in heresy as the supposed 
author of " De tribus Impostoribus." 

We should certainly feel grateful for any the- 
ory that should satisfactorily explain the Vita 
Nuova. No one can have read that singular 
work, without having found his progress perpetu- 
ally checked, and his pleasure impaired, by the 
occm-rence of passages apparently unintelligible, 
or presenting only an unimportant meaning, in 
phrases the most laborious and involved. These 
difficulties we have been in the habit of referring, 
partly to corruptions in the text, for of all the 
works of Dante * there is none in which the edi- 
tions are so at variance, and the rio-lit readino-s 
so uncertain ; partly to the scholastic forms of 
language Avith which all writers at the revival of 
literature — but none so much as Dante, a stu- 

* Dr. Nott informed the writer of these remarks, that he had 
been enabled, by collating several Italian MSS. not generally 
known, to rectify many apparent obscurities in the Comedia it- 
self. 

23 



354 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

dent in many universities, and famous among 
his countrymen and foreigners for the depth of 
his scientific acquirements — dehghted to over- 
load the simphcity of their subject. Certainly, 
until Signor Rossetti suggested the idea, we 
never dreamed of looking for Ghibelline enigmas 
in a narrative apparently so remote from politics. 
Nor did it occur to us to seek even for moral 
meanings, that might throw a forced and doubt- 
ftil light on these obscurities. Whatever uncer- 
tain shape might, for a few moments, be assumed 
by the Beatrice of the Comedia, imparadised in 
overpowering effluences of light and music, and 
enjoying the immediate vision of the Most High, 
here at least, in the mild humility and modest 
nobleness of the living and loving creature, to 
whom the sonnets and canzones are addressed, 
we did believe we were safe from allegory. 
Somethino; indeed there was of vao;ueness and 
unreality in the picture we beheld : but it never 
disturbed our faith ; for we believed it to arise 
from the reverential feeling which seemed to 
possess the poet's imagination, and led him to 
concentrate all his loftiest sentiments and pure 
ideas of perfection in the object of his youthful 
passion, consecrated long since and idealized to 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE," 355 

his heart, by the sanctities of the overshadowing 
tomb. It was a noble thing, we thought, to see 
the stern pohtician, the embittered exile,* the 
man worn by the world's severest realities, who 
knew how sharp it was to mount another's stairs, 
and eat another's bread, in his old age ; yet, 
amidst these sufferings and wounded feelings, 
recurring with undaunted memory to the days 
of his happy boyhood : not for purposes of vain 
regret ; not for complaints of deceived expecta- 
tion ; not to color the past time with the sombre 
tints of the present : but to honor human nature ; 
to glorify disinterested affection ; to celebrate 
that solemn, primeval, indissoluble alliance be- 
tween the imao-ination and the heart. It was 
this consideration, we confess, that imparted its 
principal charm to the character of Beatrice, 
both in the Vita Nuova, and the great poem, 

* It is by no means certain that the Vita Niiova was composed 
after the stormy period of Dante's life had begun. Rossetti takes 
for granted that it was written after 1302, the date of his exile. 
He, of course, rejects entirely the apparent authority of Boccaccio 
in his Vita di Dante, where it is expressly stated that the poet 
wrote it in his twenty-seventh year, i. e. about 1292. It may, 
however, have been retouched afterwards. Certainly the conclu- 
sion seems to refer to the Comedia as a work already in hand ; yet 
we have no reason to think any of this was written before 1300, the 
date assigned bj' Dante himself. 



35^ PROF. ROSSETTl'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

which seemed its natural prolongation. We 
liked to view these works in what appeared to 
be their obvious relation ; nor could we ever 
read without emotion that passage in the conclu- 
sion of the former, in which the poet, feeling 
even then his lips touched by the inspiring cher- 
ubim, speaks loftily, but indistinctly, of that 
higher monument he was about to raise to her 
whom he had already celebrated with so ample 
a ritual of melodious eulogy. In the Paradise, 
and the latter part of the Purgatory, we have 
intimated already, that the reality of Beatrice 
Portinari seemed, for a time, to become absorbed 
into those celestial truths, of which she had always 
been a mirror to the imagination of her lover. 
Described throughout as most pure, most hum- 
ble, most simple, most affectionate, and as the 
personal form in which Dante delighted to con- 
template the ideal objects of his moral feelings, 
is it wonderful that she should become at last for 
him the representative of religion itself ? "We 
rise indeed a step higher by this bold personifica- 
tion, but that step is on the same ascent we have 
climbed with him from the beginning. Judged 
by the exact standard of calculated realities, it 
was no more true that Beatrice deserved the 



SULLO SPlPdTO ANTIPAPALEr 357 

praises of those early sonnets, than that she is 
worthy to represent the Church, or Kehgion, in 
the solemn procession through terrestrial Para- 
dise. Imagination gave her the first ; imagina- 
tion assigns the last: according as our tempers 
are disposed, we may blame the extravagance 
of the fiction, or sympathize with that truth of 
feeling, which raises round its delicate vitality 
this protecting veil ; but we cannot, in fairness 
of reasoning, assume the absence of any real 
groundwork in the one representation of Bea- 
trice, unless we are prepared to deny it also in 
the other. Signor Rossetti, indeed, is fully so 
prepared. He considers such a passion, as is 
usually thought to be depicted in the poems of 
that time, as utterly chimerical and absurd ; and 
wonders at the stupidity of those learned men 
who have written volumes on the contrary sup- 
position. On this point we shall have a word 
to say presently. Here we confine ourselves to 
maintaining that a character may be allegorical 
in part, without being so altogether. We are 
not inclined, therefore, to admit the force of 
Rossetti's argument, founded on the famous 
scene of the chariot ; because, when we have 
cheerfhlly granted that the daughter of Folco 



358 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONl 

Portinari was never robbed of the Christian 
Church by a Babj^lonian harlot, we do not agree 
with him that we have conceded all that is of 
moment in the question. We , are still, it seems 
to us, at liberty to contend, not merely that a 
Florentine lady, named Beatrice, did actually 
exist, and was beloved by Dante, but that she is 
the very Beatrice whose imaginary agency he 
exhibits to us in liis poem, and whose real con- 
duct he describes in his '' Life." But while we 
are determined, by the force of w^hat our author 
dismisses at once as foolish prejudice and second- 
hand sentimentality, not to yield a single inch 
of ground further than facts oblige us, we 
frankly confess his observations have made so 
much impression on us, that we fear (at the risk 
of the Professor's contempt, we must use that 
word) there may be more of allegory in the two 
last of the Cantiche of the Comedia, than we 
had hitherto imagined. He need not triumph in 
this concession. We are ready to die fighting in 
the cause, rather than go the whole lengths of a 
theory which would have us acknowledge noth- 
ing in the ••' dolce guida e cara," whose smile 
brightened the brightness of Paradise, but a 
mixture of a possible good Pope and a possible 
good Emperor ! 



SULLO SPIRITO antipapale:' 359 

Besides, the new interpretation of the Vita 
Nuova appears to us forced and desperate. It 
might not be difficult, we imagine, to find twenty 
other hidden meanings at least as plausible. We 
will, however, give it at length, that our readers 
may judge. The whole of that treatise, then, it 
appears, is a narration, in gergo^ of one fact, — 
the change from Madonna Cortesia or Imperial- 
ism, to Madonna Pieta or Romanism. In proof 
of this, we have the second vision quoted : ''II 
dolcissimo Signore, il quale mi signoreggiava, per 
la virtu della gentilissima donna nella mia im- 
maginazione, apparve come pellegrino leggier- 
mente vestito e di vili drappi." This indicates, 
we are told, that Dante was about to undertake 
an allegorical pilgrimage, clothed in Guelfic gar- 
ments. Love, who looked " as if his seignory 
had passed away," proceeds to tell the poet, "lo 
vengo da quella donna la quale e stata Imiga tua 
difesa, e so che il suo venire non sara : e pero 
quel cuore ch'io ti faceva aver da lei io Tho 
meco, e portolo a donna, la quale sara tua difen- 
sione, come costei ; e nominollami, sicche io la 
conobbi bene." Then Love disappears, and the 
poet remains " cambiato in vista," (that is, says 
Rossetti, in his outward appearance), and tells 



360 PROF. ROSSETTl'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

us, " Dico quelle die amore ni disse, avvegnache 
non compiutamente, per tenia ch'io avea di non 
scoprire il mio segreto." This secret is the 
name of the new lady to whom he is to feign 
love. The evil rumors which began to gather 
against Dante, on the occasion of this " nuova 
difesa," for '' troppa gente ne ragionava oltre ai 
termini della Cortesia " (that is, many persons 
not belonging to the Imperial party), occasioned 
some stern behavior in Beatrice, who denied 
her lover the accustomed salutation. In other 
words, the Imperial party began to suspect him 
of being a Papist : " which," the Professor adds, 
with some naivete, " was natural enough, seeing 
that all the world has hitherto made the same 
mistake." Then follows a dream of Dante, in 
which Love appeared to him, and said, " Fili 
mi, tempus est ut praetermittantur simulacra 
nostra." After which he is commanded to make 
a Ballata, in which he should speak to his Beati- 
tude, not immediately, but indirectly, and should 
place in the midst of it some words, adorned 
with sweetest harmony, that might declare his 
real intention to the lady herself. The Ballata 
follows, and the poet directs it to seek his 
Madonna, " Presso ch'avresti chiesta pietate." 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 361 

According to the new interpretation, this Ballata 
is a symbol of the Divina Commedia, and the 
words " nel mezzo " refer to the description of 
terrestrial Paradise in the latter part of the 
Purgatory, concerning which we shall hear a 
good deal presently. The sonnet, which comes 
next in order, preceded by a prose paraphrase in 
Dante's usual fashion, does not certainly present 
a very intelligible sense, according to its literal 
acceptation. 

Tutti li miei pensier parlan d'Araore, 

Ed hanno in lor si gran varietate, 

Ch'altro mi fa voler sua potestate, 

Altro folle ragiona il suo valore, 
Altro sperando m' apporta dolzore, 

Altro pianger mi fa spesse fiate, 

E sol s' accordano in chieder Pietate, 

Tremando di paura ch'6 nel core! 
Ond' io non so da qual materia prenda, 

E vorrei dire, e non so ch' io mi dica, 

Cosl mi trovo in amorosa erranza. 
E se con tutti vo fare accordanza, 

Convienemi chiamar la mia nemica, 

Madonna la Pieta, che mi difenda.* 

* Whether " Pieta " is in this instance adequately translated 
b}'^ " Pity," seems rather diflScult to determine. On Rossetti's hy- 
pothesis, it signifies ** Piety." There are, however, innumerable 
passages in Dante, which, without the most barefaced violence, 
could not be brought to bear such a construction of the word. In 
the Vocabolario della Crusca, only one instance is cited, (from 



362 PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

I have no thought that does not speak of los^e; 

They have in them so great variety, 

That one bids me desire his sovranty, 
One with mad speech his goodness would approve ; 
Another, bringing hope, brings pleasantness, 

And yet another makes me often weep: 

In one thing only do they concord keep. 
Calling for Pity, in timorous distress. 
So know I not which thought to choose for song; 

Fain would I speak, but wild words come and go, 

And in an amorous maze I wander long. 
No wa}'- but this, if Concord must be made, 

To call upon Madonna Pit^^'s aid; 

And yet Madonna Pity is my foe. 

" I say Madonna," Dante adds, " speaking, as 
it were, disdainfully." In the new theory this 
mysterious Madonna Pieta represents the Cath- 
olic religion ; and the sonnet is an announcement 
of the new disguise found necessary for the sect. 
Dante then vindicates his frequent personifica- 
tions of Love, quoting Ovid, who puts into the 
mouth of Love as of a human person, " Bella 

Casa), in which Pieta is used in this sense: — " Buon animo, con- 
forme alia perpetua Pieta e religione di Dio." Generally speaking, 
Pieta may either be rendered by compassion, or it has a wider sig- 
nification, answering in some degree to that of Pietas in Latin, or 
evoElSaa in Greek, as e. g., in this passage from the Tesoretto 
of Latini: " Pietade non b passione, anzi una nobile disposizione 
d'animo, apparecchiata di ricevere amore, misericordia e altre 
caritative passioui." 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 363 

mllii video, bella parantur, ait." " And by tliis 
my book may be rendered clear to any one that 
doubts resj^ecting any part of it." Of course 
this quotation from Ovid is eagerly laid hold of 
by Signor Rossetti, who considers it a key of the 
whole treatise, and it must be owned it suits 
his purpose well. The death of poor Beatrice, 
although not the next incident mentioned by 
Dante, is the next he finds serviceable : and the 
mode of describing it affords room for much 
triumph on the part of our new interpreter. 
" Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo ! 
Facta est quasi vidua domma gentium ! II Sig- 
nore della Giustizia chiamo quella gentilissima," 
&c. Now it seems there is extant a Latin letter, 
written by Dante to the conclave of cardinals on 
the occasion of the death of Clement V., exhort- 
ing them to elect an Italian pontiff, and thus to 
bring back the chair of Peter from Avignon to 
Rome.. This letter begins with the very words 
above mentioned, " Quomodo sola sedet," &c. 
By this step Dante declared himself a partisan 
of Romanism, anxious for the supremacy of the 
eternal city. It was, therefore, according to 
Rossetti, an act of deception, a bait thrown out 
to nibbling Guelfs, and exactly of a piece Avith 



364 PROF. ROSSETTFS ''DISQUISrZIONI 

his scheme of concealing heresy in an apparently 
orthodox poem. It is evident, the Professor 
thinks, that the death of Beatrice indicates the 
completion of the change to seeming Romanism, 
and that this extract of the Latin letter was in- 
troduced to show it. He expatiates on the indii^- 
ferent, unimpassioned style in which the death is 
first mentioned : the strange passage in which 
Beatrice is declared to he the nmnher nine, three 
times three, on account of her perfection, and 
because the Trinity was the root of her moral 
being, appears to him a decisive proof that no 
real person is here described, but a fictitious, 
allegorical creation, such as he has pointed out. 
This, however, is far from being the only sig- 
nification which he attaches to the death of 
Beatrice. The important change of gergo oc- 
curred, once for all, under the auspices of Dante ; 
but what then are we to make of Laura, Fiam- 
metta, Selvaggia, and other objects of Platonic 
affection, equally indispensable to the Professor's 
theory ? * His excursive fancy scorns to be con- 

* To the list, which he already considers large enough to need 
his explanation, may be added the Caterina of Canioens, the Elisa 
in the Eclogues of Garcilaso, the " departed saint " of Milton, the 
Thyrza of Byron, the Luc}'- of Wordsworth, and half a hundred 
more, whom we should be weary of enumerating. Perhaps in some 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 365 

fined to the limits of a single interpretation, even 
when it is the cherished fruit of his own labors. 
That all those ladies should die before their 
lovers, is too gi^eat a prodigy for his scepticism to 
digest. There must be a deep secret in it ; and 
by dint of searching in masonic books, and study- 
ing Swedenborg, he thinks he has discovered it. 
These " donne gentili," it turns out, are only 
beautiftil truths, relative to a future perfect gov- 
ernment, which the initiated naturally fall in 
love with, and whose pretended deaths relate to 
a mysterious ritual function in the secret socie- 
ties. Thus Beatrice is a part of Dante, and 
Laura of Petrarch. The grief of these faithful 
lovers for their departed mistresses, is grief only 
in the external man, beyond which the unini- 
tiated can understand nothinc^. But the inner 
soul, which lives a true life in the possession of 
its great secret, rejoices all the while, and smiles 
at the hypocritical tears of its outward counte- 
nance. Reserving to ourselves the privilege of 
offering some objections to this strange account, 
when we come to speak of Petrarch, we will 

future edition we may hope for an opposite list of poets, who have 
died before their mistresses; a fact equally curious, it seems to us, 
and equally worthy of masonic interpretation. 



366 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

now lay before our readers two extracts from 
that portion of Signor E-ossetti's work whicli 
treats of the " Divina Commedia." 

This poem, he tells us, is a political allegory 
throughout. The Inferno represents Italy, the 
Abisso at the end being Rome, and the episodic 
scene in the ninth canto being intended to 
shadow forth the state of Florence, and the ar- 
rival of Henry of Luxemburg. Purgatory is 
the actual condition of the Setta d'Amore, tor- 
mented and without rest, yet happy, "perche 
speran di venire, Quando clie sia, alle beate 
genti." Paradise is the Emperor's court as it 
will be hereafter, when Maria, or the Immacu- 
late Sect, shall have brought forth Christ, the 
anointed heir of the empire, who shall execute 
the great judgment on Babylon or Rome, and 
elevate all who have faithfully served him to 
peace and honor in his court. The Professor 
shall explain these things in his own words. 

It will be allowed, I suppose, that in these two expres- 
sions — ''II Mondo presente," "II Tempo presente," the 
two words mondo and tempo are equivalent in sense, and 
may be considered synonymous. Now, in the Purgatorio, 
Dante asks a spirit for what reason " il mondo fosse cosi 
privo di virtu, e gravido di malizia." And he makes the 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 367 

spirit answer him, Ben puoi veder," &c. You may easily 
perceive that bad government is the cause from which pro- 
ceeds the guiltiness of the world. When Rome had two 
luminaries (the Emperor and the Pope), who pointed out 
to us the two ways, that of the world, or pohtical well- 
being, and that of God, or spiritual felicity, then Rome 
produced the good time ; but since one has destroyed 
the other (the Pope has eclipsed the Emperor), the exact 
contrary has taken place ; for the people, perceiving their 
spiritual guide only intent on stealing that temporal good 
which their own appetites desire, follow readily the bad 
example of their head, and glut themselves with the things 
of this life, having no regard whatever to spiritual good. 
The Church of Rome, therefore, is the cause of such a 
depravation. She has perverted the two governments, 
as well that which is her own as that which she usurped, 
whereby she has fallen into the filth of all wickedness, and 
pollutes not only herself but whoever leans on her." In 
another part of the Purgatory, he says yet more clearly, 
" H capo reo lo mondo torce." Hence the idea of Dante 
is evident, and expressly contained in his words. Rome, 
when good, had produced the good time. Rome, when 
bad, produced the bad time ; because the bad head, in 
which the time is reflected, gave the example of depravity. 
Now all the Inferno of Dante has for its principal element 
the bad time, the same wliich Boccaccio mentions as the 
source of all the Tartarean streams described by the poet. 
The GhibelUne bard represents it in the fourteenth canto, 
under the aspect of a vast Colossus, composed of vai'ious 
metals corresponding to the various fictitious ages, golden, 



368 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

silver, copper, and iron. But in what direction is situated 
this bad time, all whose productions are poured into hell ? 
In what place is it mirrored, as a perfect likeness ? " E 
Roma guarda siccome suo speglio." 

In the Inferno, Dante tells us that the Evangehst, who 
wrote the Apocalypse, beholding " Colei che siede sopra 
I'acque," saw a figure of the corrupted papacy. She is the 
great harlot, " quas sedet super aquas multas," and those 
waters are figures of nations "et aquae quas vidisti, ubi 
Meretrix sedet, populi sunt et gentes." The waters, 
therefore, produced by the bad time, wliich mirrors itself 
in corrupted Kome, are figures of corrupted nations, " la 
gente che sua guida vede." Let us follow the course of 
these waters, and see where they discharge themselves. 
They are poured, we shall find, into the lake of the abyss, 
where Satan dwells, " in su che Dite siede." This lake 
is surrounded by a great wall, and the wall by a vast in- 
trenchment ; the latter is twenty-two miles in circuit, the 
former eleven. Now the outer intrenchment of the walls 
of Rome (whether real or imaginary) is said by the con- 
temporaries of Dante to be exactly twenty-two miles 
round, and the walls themselves were, and still are, about 
eleven. It is obvious, therefore, that the bad time is in- 
tended to behold, as a mirror, that bad place, which is the 
receptacle of those waters, or nations ; in other words that 
figurative Rome, " in su che Dite siede ! " The waters re- 
turn to their great fountain ; this is a physical fact, used 
aUegorically : the perverted nations to the source of their 
iniquities : this is the meaning of the allegorical image. 

The characteristic vice of the Papal Court was avarice. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 369 

A thousand writers tell us so, and Dante among the rest. 
The Demon of Avarice, when he sees Dante descend 
through Hell, cries out to him, " Pap' e Satan, Pap' e 
Satan, Aleppe." All commentators explain *' Aleppe," 
as prince, from the Hebrew Aleph, just as Gioseppe 
comes from Joseph. For this reason, the demon cries, 
" The Pope is Satan, Prince of this Hell." Before we 
pursue the demonstration, we must make one remark on 
this verse. It has driven the commentators mad ; they 
give it up as unintelligible : now we understand what it 
means. The two measurements, spoken of above, were 
always thought to be mentioned at random ; now we per- 
ceive the evident allusion. Observe, too, they are the 
only measurements to be found in all the Inferno, and 
they are derived from no geographical dimension, nor 
any Scriptural doctrine : now we see at once from what 
quarter they are derived. And by the help of these pas- 
sages, we may understand the origin of many other allu- 
sions to Kome and its Sovereign. 

The Lake of the Abyss, central point of the region of 
wickedness governed by the Demon Gerione, is surround- 
ed by moats, and a chain of successive bridges leads to 
the great wall of this Lake. Dante likens these motes to 
those which surround a fortified city, and the bridges to 
those which lead into such a city, and the damned spirits 
crossing the first bridge, to those who cross the bridge of 
Castel Sautangelo at Rome, " e vanno a S. Pietro." We 
cannot, in this place, explain whom the demon of fraud, 
called Gerione, " qui tribus unus erat," is intended to 
represent: but only let us keep in mind that Dante's 
24 



370 PROF, ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

Satan is also " tribus unus." Now can we fully declare 
the purport of tliose bridges over which the Demon pre- 
sides : only let us keep in mind an etymology, sufficiently 
common, " Pontifex a pontibus faciundis." 

The famous 734 towers of the Roman walls, mentioned 
by Pliny, were in the time of Dante, nearly half remain- 
ing. These towers caused many allusions to those of 
Babylon : and such allusions there are in Dante. The 
wall that encloses the Abyss is crowned with far-seen 
towers, " Montereggion di torri si corona." There, in 
that thick gloom, "A lui parve veder molte alte torri." 
He asked, " What city is this ? What land is this ? " 
His guide answered him, " Sappi, che non son torri, ma 
giganti," who were towering, " di mezzala persona," over 
that wall which was eleven miles round. Dante perceives 
the first to be a giant, and his head appeared, " Come la 
pina di S. Pietro a Roma." 

Let us now set together six distinct points which bear 
relation to each other, and have one common direction. 
The trench which surrounds the lake of the abyss, has the 
precise dimensions of the intrenchment at Rome. The 
wall which surrounds the abyss, in which Satan resides, 
has the precise dimensions of the Roman walls within 
which the Pope resides. The Demon of Avarice exclaims, 
" Pape," &c. The corrupt time, which sends forth into 
the abyss its wicked nations, made so by itself, " Roma 
guarda," &c. The damned passing under the first bridge 
leading to the abyss, are compared to those who go to St. 
Peter's at Rome : on the wall of the abyss, to which that 
bridge leads, appear giants resembling towers, and the 



SULLO SPIRITO A NT I PAP ALE." 371 

head of the first seemed to Dante as the cupola of St. 
Peter's at Rome. But who is the giant, whom Dante first 
perceived on the wall of the abyss, where he imagined he 
saw many towers ? Who is he whose head seemed like 
" the cupola of St. Peter's ? " He is Nimrod, the builder 
of the tower of Babylon. " Hie turrificus simul et terri- 
ficus Nemroth, tarres in novissima Babylone construens." 
So speaks Petrarch of the Roman Court, which sometimes 
he called Hell, and almost always Babylon : for he never 
affixes any other date to his confidential letters, than 
" dalla gemina Babilonia," considering it perhaps as at 
once terrestrial and infernal : and in his answer to a 
friend, who had expressed surprise at this bold indication, 
he says, " Subscriptionibus eplstolarum mearum miraris, 
nee immerito, non nisi geminam Babyloniam cum legeris. 
Desine immirari. Et sua Babylon huic terrarum tractui 
est ; a quibus coudita incertum, a quibus habitata notissi- 
mum, certa ab his a quibus jure optimo nomen hoc possi- 
det. Hie Nemroth p'otens in terra contra dominum, ac 
superbis turrihus coelum petens. Hie pharetrata Semira- 
mis (the Babylonian harlot). Non hie Cerberus horrendus, 
non imperiosus Minas ? " — Ep. 8, sin. tit. Numberless 
writers of the time, and even historians, were in the habit 
of calling the Papal Court by this name : and it was doubt- 
less to make more evident the signification of this abyss, 
the receptacle of waters springing from one " che Roma 
guarda," that Dante placed in the first rank there the 
builder of the tower of Babylon, whose head appeared to 
him long and bulky, like the dome of St. Peter's. — 
Cap. V. entitled, ''Principale Allegoria del' Inferno di 
Dante." 



372 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

Our next extract relates to the scene of the 
chariot. It is taken from the eleventh chapter 
of Sionor Rossetti's work, which is headed 
" Carattere Dommatico e Politico del Poema 
di Dante." 

Dante has placed nearly in the middle of his Comedia* 
a majestic representation, eminent above the rest, and 
standing out in clear light, like an obelisk in the centre 
of a large square ; into this representation he has gathered' 
all the effect of opposing lights and shades, for it partakes 
of the Inferno and Paradiso, between which it Is situated, 
and brings them, so to speak, into contact. This scene, 
prepared by everything that has come before, and illus- 
trated by every thing that follows, naturally arrests all the 
attention of the reader, as it concentrated all the art of the 
author. This scene, in short, presents to us the heavenly 
Beatrice in immediate opposition to the infernal Meretrice. 
There the virtuous lady Is set over against the abandoned 
woman : they meet as two Inveterate enemies, as Holiness 
and Sin. On the right explanation of this scene depends 
in a great measure the interpretation of the entire Co- 
media, for this is the secret knot in which the principal mys- 
tery Is enclosed. We are about to disentangle this hard 
knot, but we shall not be able to loosen it entirely, until 
our labors are further advanced. We begin by asking. 
Is that abandoned woman a real person ? Certainly not. 
She Is an allegorical figure of the Pope. Dante declares 
it, and all agree in this. Shall we say then that the vir- 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 373 

tuous. lady, introduced for the sole purpose of contrasting 
witli the other, is to be considered a real character? Sup- 
pose you had before you a picture of some great master : 
such is the wonderful effect of the mingled lights and 
shades, that you yield to the illusion, and believe you see 
nature itself Afterwards, when you look again and again, 
you perceive it is a picture, and not a reality. You see 
that what you considered shadow is only color contrived 
to imitate shadow, and not the real thing. But when you 
have become fully convinced of this, would it ever come 
into your head that the light, beside the painted shadow, 
is not itself the work of art, but a real, natural light, like 
that of the sun ? Or Avhat degree of judgment should we 
allow to a critic, who should maintain, that of these two 
expressions, the Iron Age and the Golden Age, one in- 
deed was metaphorical and denoted the depravation of 
human society, with its attendant miseries, while the other 
signified real gold, excavated from mines, and wrought by 
workmen ? Yet how does the case differ ? In one and 
the same picture, Dante represents to us two women, one 
dissolute, another immaculate, each related to the other 
as her opposite. K in the first we have discovered the 
Anti-Christ and Anti-Cii3sar, under a generic name of 
Babylon or its ruler, we ought at least to presume that in 
the other is typified Christ and Cfesar, under the generic 
name of Jerusalem or its sovereign. But let us not trust 
this presumption ; let us not leave that best commentary 
on Dante, the Apocalypse. Both these allegorical females 
were taken from that book, and the forms of language with 
which the Evangelist represented them, in order to express 



374 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

their contrast, are nearly identical with those employed 
by Dante. Let us examine the sacred text. " Vcni, et 
ostendam tibi damnationem Meretricis magnse," &c. — 
Apoc. xvii. Here we have the Meretrice described by 
Dante. " Veni et ostendam tibi sponsam uxorem Agni," 
&c. — A]Joc. XX. And here is that very Beatrice, whom 
Dante has painted on the great and lofty mountain, where 
he was placed to behold her : here is she, who descended 
from heaven in all the brightness of God, and " Parata 
sicut sponsa viro suo," &c., was solemnly hailed, " Veni, 
sponsa de Libano," hke the mystic bride of Canticles. 
It is true Dante dared not call her Jerusalem, in open 
language ; jet after his fashion he does call her so, and 
that in more places than one. Here is an instance. De- 
scribing himself at the foot of the lofty mountain, on whose 
summit he afterwards sees this Lady-City, he tells us, 

*' Gia era 11 sole all' orizonte giunto 
Lo cui meridian cerchio coverchia 
Jerusalem col suo piu alto punto." — Parg. 11, 

And the meridian circle in which he found himself covers 
with its high point exactly the top of that mountain, on 
which the New Jerusalem afterwards revealed herself, 
and which he indicates by this circumlocution. Every 
reader naturally turns his thoughts to the real Jerusalem 
in the arctic hemisphere, while Dante intends to speak of 
the figurative city in the antarctic. The antithetical 
spirit, which we shall find so marked and constant in him, 
led him to place in diametrical opposition the old Jeru- 
salem to the New, " Paratam, sicut sponsam," (Purg. 11), 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 375 

as John saw it in the Spirit. August is her equipage, 
minutely described to us. She advances, preceded by all 
the books of the Old Testament, all the Sacraments per- 
sonified. She pauses, surrounded by the four Gospels 
personified. She is followed by the Acts of the Apostles, 
the Apostolic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, equally per- 
sonified. Are these attendants of Beatrice all real per- 
sons ? No ; and yet you hear them, see them, touch them. 
Let Dante alone — this is his art. The chariot on which 
the blessed lady proceeds is more beautiful than that of 
the sun : on the left are the four cardinal virtues, on the 
right the three theological virtues, all personified. But 
the sacred chariot is suddenly, by the poisonous breath of 
the dragon rising from beneath, transformed into a seven- 
headed, ten-horned monster. And lo ! as soon as the char- 
iot has become an image of the dragon Satan, and unwor- 
thy of Beatrice, there arises audaciously, " like a rock of 
Babylon," the shameless Meretrice, who dashes forward 
to plunge into the forest, the opposite of that garden in 
which her rival remains. Let us reflect on this. The 
heavenly lady retains all the venerable and august at- 
tendants with whom she appeared ; all the theolooical 
and cardinal virtues, all the books of the old and new 
testament, all the sacraments, &c. And what does the 
other? The thief, who stole away the chariot, without 
the holy books, without the sacraments, without the virtues, 
hurries away with the beast on which she sits, and with a 
king of the earth, her paramour, " Meretrix magna cum 
qua fornicati sunt reges terr«." In short her possessions are 
all infernal, not heavenly. Now, when we know that this 



3/6 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

abandoned creature is a symbol of Babylon and its ruler, 
we are forced to exclaim — What a dark idea of tlie Pope 
possessed the imagination of Dante ? A Pope destitute of 
all that properly constitutes a Pope ! A Pope without holy 
books, without sacraments, without cardinal and other vir- 
tues. Can we think that Dante, held such a phantom to be 
a true Pope ? But if not, who was, in his mind, the true 
Pontiff ? Since it is evident that in these two women the 
Ghibelline poet meant to represent a contrast of extremes, 
and as it were the highest good and the highest evil person- 
ified, we may substitute for these apocalyptic ladies the two 
apocalyptic ages, the wretched age of impious Babylon, 
and the happy age of holy Jerusalem ; or otherwise, the 
age of gold and that of iron, which do not differ fl'om the 
Babylonish time and its opposite. The age of gold includes 
in itself all perfection, as well doctrinal as political, that is 
a pure worship and a rightful government ; which to a 
GhibelHne implied the beatitudes imparted by an excellent 
Emperor and an excellent Pontiff. The age of iron is diamet- 
rically opposed to the other in both respects. Having es- 
tablished this, we are at liberty to say that this golden age, 
expressed as the Lady of Blessing, or Lady Beatrice, pro- 
duces the two beatitudes which are the objects of human 
aspiration, that of mortal life and that of immortal, in such 
completeness, that we are put in possession of a terrestrial 
Paradise here, and a celestial Paradise hereafter. She will 
make us attain the earthly blessedness, by means of the 
moral and intellectual virtues, called cardinal, as a good 
Emperor ought to do. She will make us attain the heav- 
enly blessedness, by means of the holy Clu-istian virtues, 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." ^yy 

called theological, as a good Pontiff ought to do. But these 
two abstract perfections, reduced to one concrete figure, 
form exactly the Donna Beatrice, who blesses by a double 
beatitude ; and on this account the poet placed the car- 
dinal virtues on her left, and the theological on her riglit, 
in the picture he has drawn of her. According to this 
Analysis, it appears that the imaginary Lady of Bless- 
ing, in whose eyes Dante contemplated lofty mysteries, 
" Or con uni or con altri reggimenti," includes in herself 
the temporal and spiritual government, so as to possess, we 
repeat, in the same moment the perfect and true essence 
of an excellent Emperor and an excellent Pope. 

Who assures us then that this interpretation is correct ? 
We might answer, Inductive Criticism ; but we will rather 
say, Dante himself Let Dante come to interpret himself, 
and let his words be not only heard but maturely consid- 
ered, since they are worthy of all hearing and considera- 
tion. He has explained all this in the commentary he 
has left us on his poem, yet no one has hitherto under- 
stood him. " Duo igitur fines providentia ilia inenar- 
rabilis homini posuit intendendos ; beatitudinem scilicet 
hujus vitae, quae in operatione proprias virtutis consistit, 
et per Terrestrem Paradisum figuratur ; et beatitudinem 
vitse aeternas, quae consistit in fruitione divini aspectus, ad 
quam virtus propria accedere non potest, nisi divino lu- 
mine adjuta, quae per Paradisum Celestem intelligi da- 
tur." Then having explained the several functions of a 
Pontiff and an Emperor, as the appointed guides to these 
several beatitudes, he continues, " Papa et Imperator, cum 
sint relativa, reduci habebunt ad aliquod Unum, in quo 



37^ PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

reperiatur iste respectus superpositionis absque dlfFeren- 
tialibus aliis." — De Monarch, sub fin. And he has re- 
duced them to one, " in quantum homines," not takmg into 
account at present the Holy Trinity, which, by his own 
confession, is also included in the Lady of Blessing, but 
only the Emperor and the Pope. Let us reflect on 
this. 

We know from history that the Patarini were in the 
habit of charging the Pope with robbery and spoliation 
of the Church of Christ. We know that the Ghibellines 
accused him of having stolen and usurped the seat of 
Ctesar. Dante exhibits to us an allegorical representa- 
tion, in which the Meretrice steals from Beatrice the 
"divine and august" chariot, bearing the characters of 
that Christian Church, and that Lnperial Throne. If, 
after this evident allegory, any one persists in saying that 
this Lady of Blessing is not such as analysis demonstrates, 
but really and truly Madonna Beatrice Portinari of Flor- 
ence, daughter of Messer Folco Portinari, a Florentine, 
and wife of Messer Simone de' Bardi, a Florentine, we 
are entitled to ask in what chronicle it is recorded for our 
instruction, that the Pope stole the Church and Empire 
from the daughter of Messer Folco, the wife of Messer 
Simone. What does Dante call the Empire, deprived of 
its Emperor ? 

" Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta." — Purg.vi. 

What does he call the chariot, deprived of Beatrice ? 

" Nave in fortuna 
Vinta dell' onde, or da poggio, or da orso." — Purg. xxx. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANriPAPALE." 379 

What comparison does he apply to Beatrice ? Pie likens 
her to the admiral of that ship. To whom does he com- 
pare the Emperor ? To the pilot of that ship. Let us 
hear the two parallel similes. 

" Quale Amtniraglio clie di poppa in prora 
Viene a veder la gente die ministra 
Per gli aid legni, ed a ben far la incuora, 
In su la sponda del carro sinistra 
Vidi la Donna che pria m' appario." — Purg. xxx. 

" Siccome vedemo in una nave ©he diversi uffici e diversi 
fini a un solo fine sono ordinati ; cosi e uno che tutti questi 
fini ordina, e questo e il nocchiero, alia cui boce tutti ubbi- 
dir deono. Perche manifestamente vedere si pu6 che a 
perfezione dell' umana spezie conviene uno essere quasi 
nocchiero, che abbia irrepugnabile ufficio or commandare. 
E questo ufficio e per eccellenza Imperio chiamato, e chi 
a questo ufficio e posto e chiamato Imperatore." In one, 
the Emperor is a pilot giving orders to the crew, who are 
working the ship ; — in the other, Beatrice is an admiral, 
encouraging all her men, from stern to prow of the vessel. 
This Beatrice comes on in a triumphal car, resembling 
that which Rome saw driven by Augustus ; and before her 
is chanted the Virgilian verse, 

" Manibus date lilia plenis," 
written for the presumptive heir of the throne of Augustus. 
Towards this mystical Beatrice, as the ultimate aim of his 
mystical journey, the bard of the imperial Roman mon- 
arch, Virgil, conducts the bold Ghibelline, Dante, who has 
told us in his last words, 

"Lustrando superos et Phlegetonta, jura monarchiae cecini." 



380 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

If now we turn to consider the sacred symbols of this lady, 
we shall see them in such clear light, that even the most 
blind understanding must be struck with them. Here are 
some. She comes in triumph with a numerous attendance 
of angels, into the terrestrial paradise, and she is saluted 
with the verse, 

" Hosanna benedictus qui venis," 

(the " filio David being omitted,) which was chanted be- 
fore Christ when he made his triumphant entry into Jeru- 
salem. She utters these words, " Modicum et ruon vide- 
bitis me," the very words of Christ. The angels sing to 
her, " In te Domine sj^eravi," words addressed to Christ. 
She is compared, with several wiredrawn and far-fetched 
parallehsms, to Christ on Mount Tabor, with the three dis- 
ciples, Peter, James, and John, and the two prophets, 
Moses and Elias. She is compared again to Christ rais- 
ing the dead. She comes from east to west on the emblem- 
atic chariot, an evident type of the Church, which came 
also from east to west. She is surrounded with all the 
saintly company before mentioned, the biblical books, the 
sacraments, the vu-tues, &c., all which things relate to 
Christ and his rehglon. She is not only declared to be 
the Holy Trinity, but in particular is designated as the 
Second Person. This is the poet's method of doing it. In 
order to make us comprehend that this allegorical form is 
a male being figuratively transformed into a female, just 
as her opposite was, he gives her John for a forerunner, 
also changed into a woman. He tells us in the Vita Nuova 
how he saw two ladies approach, one preceding the other. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 381 

Here are the words : " The name of this lady, the first 
who came, was Giovanua ; and soon after her I saw, as I 
looked, the admirable Beatrice draw nigh." Her name 
Giovanna is from that John who went before the true 
light, sa}^ing, " Ego vox clamantis in deserto." But for 
what Lord was the way prepared here, unless it be Bea- 
trice, whom this Giovanna preceded ? Biscioni makes a 
judicious remark on this jDassage : " Dante intends to 
allude i^articularly to the office of the Baptist. We all 
know that St. John was the precursor of the Incarnate 
Word." But if the precursor is represented with a change 
of sex, we ought to infer a similar change in the person 
who follows : so that Madonna Giovanna and Madonna 
Beatrice become the exact correspondents of the Holy 
Baptist and the Baptized Divinity. Jesus Christ is called 
the Wisdom of God, and on this account Dante paints 
him as a woman : but in the course of this painting, he 
introduces " Hosanna," &c., and by various similitudes 
explains to us that it is the portrait of Christ, although 
he cannot expressly call it such. In the last analysis then 
it appears, that these two opposed women, set in direct 
contrast by Dante, are the same he found in the Apoc- 
alypse, corrupt Babylon and New Jerusalem. In these 
two figures, which shadow forth, in personification, the 
ideas of Good and Evil, two cities are represented to us 
with separate political governments : on one side. Papal 
Rome, with its head and its government, — on the other, 
Imperial Rome, with its head and government ; the same 
object, that is, under tAvo aspects, and largely accom- 
panied by symbols, characters, and indications just like 



382 PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

the two allegorical women in the Apocalypse. We find 
there, that in the famous Millennium, Christ in person 
will be the visible head of the New Jerusalem, and will 
unite in himself the two characters of Supreme Ruler and 
Religious Head. Hence Imperial Rome, or New Jeru- 
salem, comprehends all imaginable excellence ; because 
Chi'ist will, in person, produce there the two beatitudes : 
first the earthly, and then the heavenly, imaged in the 
terrestrial and celestial Paradise. It is easy for any one 
to perceive who such a figurative Christ would be for the 
Ghibellines, and whom they would expect to take upon 
him spiritual and temporal rule, for the purpose of re- 
deeming the human race from the double slavery of Anti- 
Christ and Satan, the perverters of the Empire and the 
Church. It is evident, therefore, for what reason the two 
characters are united in Beatrice, who constitutes the 
" aliqua substantia in qua Papa et Imj^erator habent re- 
duci ad unum," The very same expression is actually 
applied to a Roman Emperor in the poem, 

" Una Sostanza, 
" Sopra la qual doppio lume s'addua." — Parad. vii. 

Throughout we have the same two opposite parties ex- 
pressed in various figures : Papal Rome and Imperial 
Rome ; or Babylon the unholy, with Anti-Christ, and his 
wicked, anarchical, miserable people ; and Jerusalem, with 
Christ, and his virtuous, peaceable, happy people. Hence 
the denominations of False City and True City ; City of 
Evil Living, and City of Holy Living ; or, more briefly, 
City of Death, and City of Life. These two opposites 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 383 

again, taken as persons, became, in Dante's apocalyptic 
poem, Meretricc and Beatrice, because the Apocalypse 
had represented them as two women. Hence two kinds 
of love, the bad and tlie good ; and two classes of lovers, 
the wicked paramours of impious Babylon, and the holy 
lovers of Beatrice-Jerusalem. Also, as in the Apocalypse, 
Babylon is called the "habitation of devils," the receptacle 
of evejy unclean spirit ; and New Jerusalem is shown as the 
dwelling-place of angels, the abode of every pure spirit ; 
so, in the poem of Dante, these two cities, or Papal and 
Lnperial Rome, became Hell, with a tri-une Lucifer, and 
devils and damned spirits ; Paradise, with a tri-une God, 
and angels and blessed spirits. We have already seen 
how full of allusions to Papal Rome is the Inferno of 
Dante ; we shall see, in its turn, that there are at least as 
many in the Paradiso to Imperial Rome. 

Our readers have now a tolerable notion of 
the Professor's mode of argument. It is impos- 
sible, we think, to deny the praise of great in- 
genuity to the passages we haA^e just cited. 
The justice of some of his remarks is suffi- 
ciently obvious. That there is much allegory 
in the Divina Comedia no one can be hardy 
enough to controvert, after the express asser- 
tion of the poet himself. 

" O vol ch' avete gV intelletti sani, 
Mirate la dottrina, che s' asconde 
Sotto il velarae degli versi strani." 



384 PROF. ROSSETTFS " DISQUISIZIONI 

The only questions then are, What is the 
character of the allegorical part ? and what is 
its extent ? Here again the first of these 
questions seems to be answered by Dante him- 
self. In his Epistle to Can Grande, he says, 
" Sciendum est quod istius operis (poematis sc.) 
non est simplex sensus ; immo dici potest poli/- 
sensum, hoc est, plurium sensuum. Nam pri- 
mus sensus est quod habetur per litteram, alius 
est qui habetur per significata per litteram. 
Et primus dicitur litteralis, secundus vero alle- 
goricus. His visis manifestum est quod duplex 
oportet esse subjectum circa quod currant alterni 
sensus. Et ideo videndum est de subjecto hujus 
operis, prout ad litteram accipitur ; deinde de 
subjecto, prout allegorice sententiatur. Est ergo 
subjectum totius, literaliter tantum accepti, sta- 
tus animarum post mortem. Si vero accipiatur 
ex istis verbis, coUigere potes, quod, secundum 
allegoricum sensum, poeta agit de Inferno isto, 
in quo, peregrinando ut viatores, mereri et de- 
mereri possumus. Si vero accipiatur opus alle- 
gorice, subjectum est homo, prout, merendo et 
demerendo, per arbitrii libertatem, Justitiae pre- 
mianti et punienti obnoxius est." Does it not 
appear from this simple statement, that the prin- 



{ 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 385 

cipal allegory in the Commedia is of a moral 
nature, representing the struggles of man with 
himself, the wretched condition to which his 
vices condemn him, the glorious difficulties 
which attend his ascent upon the mountain of 
virtue, and that perfect peace which, when the 
good fight has been fought, awaits the religious 
mind in the enjoj^ment of unlimited love to- 
wards G od and man ? Rossetti, however, who 
thinks a man cunning in direct proportion to the 
openness of his language, believes this very pas- 
sage to be written in gergo ! and to contain for 
adepts a declaration that Italy and the Imperial 
court are the real subjects of the poem. By 
this scheme of interpretation anything may be 
made of anything : we continue to adhere to 
the plain words of Dante, although we by no 
means contend that there may not be several 
partial allegories of a political complexion scat- 
tered through the poem, as the '^ Polgsensum ^^ 
seems to intimate, and as Signor Rossetti's book 
has, we confess, made appear more probable to us 
than before. The second question, What is the 
extent of allegory in Dante ? answers itself for 
those possessed of poetical feeling.* Moral and 

* Lest the exclusion of Signor Rossetti from this number should 
seem harsh to any reader of these remarks, who has not also read 
25 



386 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISJZIONI 

political ideas, however they may have contrib- 
uted to the first formation of the plan in Dante's 
understanding, however much they may have 
strengthened his purpose and animated his feel- 
ings towards the execution of it, yet would assur- 
edly not have been permitted to encroach on the 
ground already consecrated to the free activity 
of his imagination, and the deep tenderness of 
his aifections. If Signor Rossetti were to write 
a poem, he would no doubt remind us, in 
every line, of some interior meaning, because 
that meaning would never be absent from his 
thoughts. The poetry would be to him an in- 
significant mask, and to indulge any feeling for 

his book, we feel bound to mention an emendation of Petrarch pro- 
posed by that gentleman, which, we think, will set the matter be- 
yond doubt. Having got some strange crotchet into his head 
about " Luce" being a sacred word among the sectarians, he pro- 
poses to alter the well-known line, 

" Ove il bel volto di Madonna luce," 

mto Ov' e il bel volto di Madonna Luce; literally, "where the 
pretty face of Mrs. Light is! " After this specimen, it is useless 
to quote his obstinate preference of the prosaic and indeed ridicu- 
lous reading, " porta i fiori " in Dante's noble description of the 
tempestuous wind. He takes no sort of notice of the imitated 
passage in Ariosto, where we never heard of " fiori " having been 
suggested by any commentator. The alteration, " Pap' 6 Satan, 
Pap' 6 Satan, Aleppe," does violence to the language no less than 
to the poetry. Besides, it was useless even for his own purpose. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 387 

it, considered apart from its prosaic object, would 
be in his opinion a ridiculous folly ! But widely 
different is the method of creative minds. Their 
vision reaches far, and embraces all objects with- 
in their horizon, without ever passing over those 
in their immediate neighborhood. To every 
man, worthy the name of poet, the first ob- 
ject is always the Beautiful. No allegory, 
however wise and j^rofound, can distract him 
from it. He may study such meanings as a 
diversion, a piece of by-play ; but they never 
interfere with the grand purpose to which his 
" spiritual agents are bent up." They are lim- 
ited then, not by speculations about the pros- 
pects of any party, Guelf or Ghibelline, but by 
the poet's own sense of harmonious fitness, that 
inward testimony, which affords to creative in- 
tellects a support during their work of thought, 
not very dissimilar from that which conscience 
supplies to all men in their work of life. 

If we have been compelled to enter our protest 
against the uncertainty and exclusiveness of the 
new theory, when applied to the writings of the 
" gran padre Alighier," we must express a still 
more decided aversion, when it would embrace 
the two others of the great Italian triumvirate. 



388 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

Petrarch, indeed, we are assured by our un- 
daunted theorist, affords a far richer harvest of 
facts in corroboration of the new doctrine, than 
his great predecessor. These riches, however, 
hke the rest of the Professor's wealth, are held 
out rather to feed our imagination with hopes for 
the future, than to satisfy us in present coin. We 
have little doubt he may hereafter write a very 
pretty Comento Analitico on the Canzoniere, but 
we have still less, that his arguments will prove 
utterly invalid and sophistical. At present he has 
given us no sort of evidence that Petrarch was 
a heretic, and a proper member of the supposed 
Setta. His language indeed, against the Papal 
court, is even more vehement than that of Dante ; 
but its virulence is unconcealed, and far from in- 
compatible with the severest notions of orthodoxy. 
It should be remembered too, although Signor 
Possetti would have us forget it, that, in almost 
every instance, these denunciations are uttered 
against the court of Avignon, and that the word 
Babylon, when applied to that court, has a pecul- 
iar reference to the Jewish captivity. Far from 
being a proof of feelings inimical to the See of 
Rome, this tone of indignant complaint may be 
considered as fresh from the heart of a pious 



SULLO SPIRITO antipapale:' 389 

Italian Catholic. So little does Petrarch appear 
to have been judged for these expressions by his 
own contemporaries, as Signer Rossetti would 
now judge him, that the Holy See actually forced 
its patronage upon him, and he was considered by 
the devout of that day as an eminent theologian. 
Yet his life was open to all. A frequent guest 
in the palaces of the great ; a commissioned de- 
fender of the rights of senates ; a correspondent 
of eminent men in church and state ; the friend 
of Colonna ; the advocate of Rienzi ; famous 
throughout Europe for eloquence and learning, 
yet more than for the poetry which has raised him 
high among the immortals ; with so many eyes 
upon him, and so many envious of his fortune, 
he would have been an easy victim, had he dealt 
in the secret manoeuvres which Signer Rossetti 
supposes. We cannot consider a vague story 
that Pope Innocent once suspected him of magic, 
as carrying any weight in the balance against the 
immunity and even favor, so far as he would ac- 
cept it, which he enjoyed under three successive 
pontiffs. Besides, a far more extensive alteration 
of gergo than that which is represented to have 
taken place in the time of Dante, would have 
been necessary to bring the sentiments of Petrarch 



390 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

into community witli those of the Florentine Fiio- 
rusciti of 1311. The pohtics of Italy underwent, 
in the fifty years that separated the death of 
Dante from that of his successor, a revolution of 
no slight moment. The Ghibelline princes of the 
North loosened or broke off their connection with 
the Imperial court. No one now dreamed of 
universal monarchy, vested in the Caesars, as a 
panacea for all political evils. Least of all would 
Petrarch give into such a chimera, who considered 
all Germans as "brutal knaves,"* and whose 
burst of patriotic indignation is so well known : 

*' Ben provide Natura al nostro stato, 
Quando de I'Alpi schermo 
Pose fra noi, e la Tedesca rabbia." 

At one time, it is true, Petrarchi with the other 
" magnanimi pochi a cui il ben piace," entertain- 
ed hopes from the promised intervention of 
Charles IV. His hortatory epistle to that sov- 
ereign, entitled " De Pacificanda Italic," is one 
of his best Latin compositions. His interview 
with him at Mantua, when, four years after the 
date of that epistle, Charles actually entered Ita- 
ly, is recorded in an eloquent letter. A passage 
in the reply of Cliarles to Petrarch, as quoted 

* Epist. sine tit. 15. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 391 

by De Sade, affords great cause of triumpli to 
Rossetti. " En voyant tant d'obstacles, et si peu 
de forces, mon esprit auroit hesite, si rAmoui*, ce 
puissant mobile des coeurs, ne les avoit fait dis- 
paroitre. L'Amour s'est assis sur mon char avec 
moi, en me presentant des triomphes, des cou- 
ronnes, et une place parmi les astres."* He 
quotes, in illustration of this, some sonnets and 
canzones, in wliicli obscure historical allusions oc- 
cur, amongst others the famous " O aspettata in 
ciel beata e bella Anima," addressed, as is com- 
monly said, to Jacopo Colonna, bishop of Lombes, 
Petrarch's intimate friend, but, according to Ros- 
setti, who takes not the slio-htest notice of the 
received opinion, secretly designed for the Pontiff 
of the Setta d'Amore. He rests much on the 
concluding lines, " che non pur sotto hende AXh^v- 
ga Amor, per cui si piagne e ride." 

But leaving this trifling guesswork, let us turn 

* Is it not reasonable to suppose that " Amour," in this place, 
is used only in its general sense of benevolence? But if a more 
recondite meaning is required, we may plausibly conjecture that au 
allusion was intended to Petrarch, as a poet of Love. By that time 
his Italian verses were as much known, though perhaps hardly as 
much admired, as his Latin compositions. " Favola fii gran tem- 
po." And he expressly tells us that, in his interview with Charles 
at Mantua, he found that prince acquainted with the minutest cir- 
cumstances of his life. 



392 PROF. ROSSETTrS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

to another point, — the passion for Laura. We 
are well content to let the whole question be 
decided by the judgment which any candid man 
would pronounce on this part of it. Not only, 
according to Rossetti, Laura never existed ; but 
Petrarch's grief for her death is not meant to be 
grief; it is, on the contrary, a higli state of in- 
ward exultation, employing — Heaven knows 
why or wherefore — an exterior language of 
seeming complaint ! Now by this our patience is 
wellnigh exhausted. We have borne much from 
Signer Rossetti, but we consider this as an out- 
rage upon common sense. Others have doubted 
the existence of Laura; but no one, however 
dead to poetry, or inattentive to facts, ever 
dreamed of suspecting a joyful intention in the 
melancholy strains of the second half of the Can- 
zoniere. For our own parts, we agree with 
Ginguene, that in the present state of the ques- 
tion, a man must be an immoderate sceptic, who 
can refuse to admit the personality of Laura as 
an historical fact. If ever passion was real, we 
believe that was. It bears every character and 
note of truth. It was peculiar, certainly ; some 
peculiarities attach to it as incidents of the time, 
and of these we shall presently speak more at 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 393 

large ; some again, which arose from the charac- 
ter of the man. But if Love and Grief ever 
spoke by a human voice, they murmured on the 
banks of Sorga, and in the " vie aspre e selvagge " 
to which their devoted victim fled. The evidence 
for this does not rest on the poems alone, although, 
to any mind, undebauched by the jargon of a 
system, these must carry the fullest conviction. 
We know more of the habits, thoughts, and pas- 
sions of Petrarch, than is our fortune with almost 
any other eminent man of modern times. His 
letters are a faithful and perpetual record of what 
he felt and did. Even his philosophical works are 
rich with the history of his own heart. He is too 
vain, too dependent on the affection of others, not 
to commit to writing the minutest turns in that 
troubled stream of passion, which hurried him 
onward from place to place, from one pursuit to 
another, until he found at last in the grave that 
desu^ed repose, which neither the solitudes of 
Vaucluse and Arqua, nor the princely halls of the 
Visconti, had been able to bestow. How any 
one can read those numerous passages in his pri- 
vate correspondence, in which he speaks of Laura, 
without feeling the impossibihty of his passion 
having been a political allegory, we cannot at 



394 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

present understand. Perhaps Signor Rossetti's 
future writings may give us some idea of it. Let 
him exert his abihties to discover the latent gergo 
in such accents as these : " The day may * perhaps 
come " — it is Petrarch speaking to one of his 
intimate friends — " when I shall have calmness 
enough to contemplate all the misery of my soul, 
to examine my passion, not however that I may 
continue to love her, but that I may love Thee 
alone, O my God ! But at this day, how many 
dangers have I still to surmount, how many efforts 
have I yet to make ! I no longer love as I did 
love, but still I love. I love in spite of myself, 
but I love in lamentations and tears. I will hate 
her — no — I must still love her." Let the 
Professor tell us how he imagines real love would 
speak in such circumstances, and whether it 

* I use the eloquent translation given by the author of Jacopo 
Ortis, in his excellent Essays on Petrarch. The following passage, 
which Foscolo has quoted from a MS. sermon of a Dominican friar, 
must be rather embarrassing to Signor Rossetti: " Ma pur Messer 
Francesco Petrarca, che 6 oggi vivo, ebbe un' amante spirituale 
appellata Laura: pero, poich^ ella mori, gl' 6 stato piu fedele che 
mai, e a li data tanta fama, che 6 la senipre nominata, e non morira 
mai. E questo e quanto al corpo. Po' li ha fatto tante limosine, 
e fatte dire tante Messe e Orationi con tanta devotione, che s'ella 
fosse la pin cattiva femina del mondo I'avrebbe tratta dalle mani 
del Diavolo, bench^ si raxona, che la mori pur santa." 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 395 

could borrow a more pathetic tone than this, or 
than we hear in the dialogues with St. Augustin, 
which are entitled, " De secreto conflictu curarum 
mearum." 

The Professor's promises respecting Boccaccio 
are, as usual, more abundant than his perform- 
ances. Yet there is some cui'ious matter on this 
subject. The " Vita di Dante " is claimed for 
the all-absorbing gergo ; by which the addi- 
tional advantage is gained of being enabled to 
reject its biographical authority ; the Filocolo 
contains, we are informed, " all the degrees, all 
the proceedings of the ancient sect, and relates 
m detail all its principal vicissitudes, especially 
that change of language, rendered necessary by 
imminent dangers. It is a hieroglyphical com- 
ment on the Commedia, and a companion to the 
Vita Nuova." We have not room to give the 
long and intricate explanation of it, which our 
readers will find in the chapter " Pellegrinaggi 
Allegorici, one of the most entertaining in the 
book. But the Decameron itself is not secure 
from this levelling theory. " Ogni minimo rac- 
conto e mistero, e spesso ogni minima frase e 
gergo : lasci\de nella faccia esterna, ma nelF 
interne grembo assai peggio." Certainly, if 



39^ PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

this statement were correct, it might form the 
subject of a pretty problem, whether it were 
more perilous to understand the secret mean- 
ing of the Decameron, or to remain satisfied 
with the letter. Atheism within, impurity 
without ! our morals are sadly in danger either 
way. One thing at least is certain, that the 
grace and delicacy of those exquisite stories will 
be materially injured by a theory which turns 
them all into masonic text books. Perhaps Sig- 
nor Rossetti will inform us in his next edition, 
whether the great plague itself was a stratagem 
of the secret society. Laura did not die of it ; 
Neifile and her blithe companions did not fly 
from its terrors ; why should any body be sup- 
posed to have suffered, when the easy alterna- 
tive is left us of explaining all extant accounts 
into convenient gergo ? 

We trust we have not expressed ourselves 
with any disrespect towards Signor Rossetti, 
whose talents and industry we freely acknowl- 
edge, and from whose further researches we 
expect much amusement and some benefit. 
Whatever becomes of this theory, much curi- 
ous matter will be set before us in the course 
of its development. His example will induce 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 297 

others to study the great master, " II Maggior 
Tosco," and to study him with the aid of those 
best of commentators, the contemporary writers. 
The enthusiastic ardor, which he shows in de- 
fence of his favorite idea, will be appreciated 
by the candid and sincere, even while their 
cooler judgment may force them to reject his 
conclusions. If indeed half, or one third of 
his abundant promises should ever be confirmed 
by future performances, it might become rather 
a difficult matter to make that resistance good. 
But the learned Professor must pardon us, if 
we retain our scepticism until he has adduced 
his proofs. We will yield to facts, but not to 
conjectures. At present he has given us no 
more ; a heap of odd coincidences, and bewil- 
dering dilemmas, but certamly not enough to 
establish on a solid foundation the brilliant fa- 
bric he wishes to erect. There are two fatal 
errors in the Professor's mode of reasoning. 
He sees his theory in everything ; and he will 
see no more in anything. Now, were he to 
establish to our full con™tion the principal 
point of his argument, namely, that a sect did 
exist such as he has described it, and that the 
great luminaries of modern civilization were ac- 



398 PROF, ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

tive members of that sect, it would by no means 
follow so easily as he seems to imagine, that 
they never were guided by any other motive, 
and never used the language of love or of re- 
ligion in their simple acceptation. Nothing ap- 
pears so absurd to him as that a number of 
learned men should spend their leisure in com- 
posing love poems. Out of pure kindness to 
their memories, he brings various instances of 
what he considers their nonsense and ridicu- 
lous exaggerations, and asks, with a fine air of 
indignation, how we can refuse to admit a 
theory, which elicits reason from that non- 
sense, and pares down those exaggerations to 
a level of ordinary understanding ? Unfortu- 
nately there are some people still in the world, 
(we do not suppose we stand alone,) who are 
inclined to prefer the nonsense of Petrarch to 
the reason of Rossetti. The poems, whose 
literal sense he assures us is so unintelligible 
and preposterous, have contrived, by no other 
sense, to charm the minds of many successive 
generations. For our own part, we confess, so 
far from seeing anything inexplicable in the fact, 
that the resurgent literature of Europe bore a 
peculiar amatory character, we should consider 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 399 

the absence of that character a circumstance 
far more unaccountable. Not to insist on the 
Teutonic and Arabian elements of that civihza- 
tion, which bore its first and lavish harvest on 
the fields of Provence, sufficient causes may be 
found in the change of manners occasioned by 
Christianity, to explain the increased respect 
for the female character, which tempered pas- 
sion with reverence, and lent an ideal color to 
the daily realities of life. While women were 
degraded from their natural position in society, 
it could not be expected that the passions which 
regard them should be in high esteem among 
moralists, or should be considered capable of 
any philosophical application. The sages of 
the ancient world despised * love as a weakness. 

* Plato, it is well known, inculcated the expediency of personal 
attachment as an incentive to virtue. He seems to have seen clear- 
ly the impossibility of governing man otherwise than through his 
affections; and the necessity of embodying our conceptions of 
beauty and goodness in some object worthy of love. But Plato 
had little influence on social manners. Many admired his elo- 
quence, and many puzzled themselves with his metaphysics; but 
the peculiarities of his ethical system were not appreciated by the 
two great nations of antiquity. His kingdom was not of that world. 
It began only when the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre, 
and the veil of the temple was rent in twain. Platonism became the 
natural ally of Christianity. Not unjustly did the Old Fathers 
consider him a " vox clamantis in deserto; " an Elias of the faith 



400 PROF. ROSSETTPS <■' DISQUISIZIONI 

Calm reason, energetic will — these alone could 
make a man sovereign over himself ; the softer 
feelings were fit only to make slaves. And 
they, who thought so, thought well. The Stoic 
Karop^w/xa, was, in those circumstances, the no- 
blest object of human endeavors. To it we 
owe the example of Rome among nations ; of 
Regulus and Cato among individuals. But with 
Christianity came a new era. Human nature 
was to undergo a different development. A 
Christendom was to succeed an empire ; and the 
proud avrapKiia of male virtues was to be tempered 
with feminine softness. Women were no Ioup;- 
er obliged to step out of the boundaries of their 
sex, — to become Portias and Arrias, in order 
to conciliate the admiration of the wise. They 
appeared in their natural guise, simple and dig- 
nified, " As one intended first, not after made 
Occasionally." This great alteration of social 
manners produced a corresponding change in 
the tone of morality. The Church too did its 
utmost for the ladies. The calendar swelled as 
fast from one sex as from the other. Children 

to come. In the same spirit Mr. Coleridge has said, " he is a plank 
from the wreck of Paradise cast on the shores of idolatrous 
Greece." 



SULLO SPIRITO antipapale:' 401 

were taught to look for models of heroism, not, 
as heretofore, in the apathetic sublimity of sui- 
cidal patriots, but in the virgin mart3ri's whose 
burnino;s and dislocations constitute the most 
interesting portion of legendary biography. 
The worship of the Virgin soon accustomed 
Catholic minds to contemplate perfection in a 
female form. And what is that worship itself, 
but the exponent of a restless longing in man's 
unsatisfied soul, which must ever find a personal 
shape, wherein to embody his moral ideas, and 
will choose for that shape, where he can, a na- 
ture not too remote from his own, but resem- 
bUng in dissimilitude, and flattering at once his 
vanity by the likeness, and his pride by the dif- 
ference ? 

This opens upon us an ampler view in which 
this subject deserves to be considered, and a re- 
lation still more direct and close between the 
Christian religion and the passion of love. 
What is the distinguishing character of He- 
brew literatui'e, which separates it by so broad 
a line of demarcation fi'om that of every an- 
cient people ? * Undoubtedly the sentiment of 

* It would be a prize of inestimable value to a philosopher, if we 
possessed any monument of the religion of the ancients. Their 
26 



402 PROF, ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

erotic devotion which pervades it. Their poets 
never represent the Deity, as an impassive prin- 
ciple, a mere organizing intellect, removed at 
infinite distance from human hopes and fears. 
He is for them a being of like passions with 
themselves, requiring heart for heart, and capa- 
ble of inspiring affection because capable of 
feeling and returning it. Awful indeed are 
the thunders of his utterance and the clouds 
that surround his dwelling-place ; very terri- 
ble is the vengeance he executes on the nations 
that forget him ; but to his chosen people, and 
especially to the men " after his own heart," 
whom he anoints ft'om the midst of them, his 

mythology we know. Their philosophy we know. But of their 
religion we are entirely ignorant. The class of believers at Rome 
or Athens was not the class of authors. The reverential Theism of 
Plato and Cicero was a sentiment much fainter than that which 
must have agitated a true believer in the golden-haired Apollo, or 
the trident-shaking ruler of stormy seas. The recluses of Iris and 
Cybele must have felt many of the same passions, which ruffle the 
indifferent calm of a modern convent. What a pity that we cannot 
compare the forms assumed by the feelings of those idolatrous 
Polytheists, with those presented in the present day by Roman 
Catholic populations! We might find, perhaps, the same prayer 
breathed before a crucifix, Avhich had been uttered ages before, be- 
side the solitary fire of Vesta; the same doubt started, the same 
struggles made, the same noble extravagance of human self-devo- 
tion, the same sad declension of human frailty ! 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 403 

'' still, small voice " speaks in sympathy and 
loving -kindness.* Every Hebrew, while his 
breast glowed with patriotic enthusiasm at those 
promises, which he shared as one of the favored 
race, had a yet deeper source of emotion, from 
which gushed perpetually the aspirations of 
prayer and thanksgiving. He might consider 
himself alone in the presence of his God ; the 
single being to whom a great revelation had 
been made, and over whose head an " exceed- 
ing weight of glory " was suspended. His per- 
sonal welfare was infinitely concerned with every 
event that had taken place in the miraculous 
order of Pro\adence. For him the rocks of 
Horeb had trembled, and the waters of the Red 
Sea were parted in their course. The word 

* Need we recall to our readers the solemn prelude of the Mosaic 
Law, the First and Great Commandment, as it was termed by One, 
who came to destroy in one sense, but in another to fulfil and es- 
tablish that Law ? " Hear, Israel, the Lord thy God is One God. 
And thou shalt love the Lord tlw God, loitli all thij heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy strength.''^ These words have made the 
destiny of the world. Spoken, as they were, to a barbarous horde 
in an age before the first dawn of Grecian intellect, yet fraught with 
a power over the heart of man beyond the utmost reach of Grecian 
philosophy, they may be considered as the greatest of miracles, or, 
to speak more wisely, as the best manifestation of that Natural 
Order, in which the moral, no less than the material elements are 
regulated and maintained. 



404 PROF. ROSSETTrS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

given on Sinai with such solemn pomp of min- 
istration was given to his own individual soul, 
and brought him into immediate communion 
with his Creator. That awful Being could 
never be put away from him. He was about 
his path, and about his bed, and knew all his 
thoughts long before. Yet this tremendous, en- 
closing presence was a presence of love. It 
was a manifold, everlasting manifestation of one 
deep feeling, — a desire for human affection. 
Such a belief, while it enlisted even pride and 
self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct 
tendency to excite the best passions of our 
nature. Love is not long asked in vain from 
generous dispositions. A Being, never absent, 
but standing beside the life of each man with 
ever watchful tenderness, and recognized, though 
invisible, in every blessing that befell them from 
youth to age, became naturally the object of 
their warmest affections. Their belief in him 
could not exist without producing, as a neces- 
sary effect, that profound impression of passion- 
ate individual attachment, which in the Hebrew 
authors always mingles with and vivifies their 
faith in the Invisible. All the books of the Old 
Testament are breathed upon by this breath 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 405 

of life. Especially is it to be found in that 
beautiful collection, entitled the Psalms of 
David, which remains, after some thousand 
years, perhaps the most perfect form in which 
the rehgious sentiment of man has been em- 
bodied. 

But what is true of Judaism is yet more true 
of Christianity, " matre pulchr^ fiha pulchrior." 
In addition to all the characters of Hebrew 
Monotheism, there exists in the doctrine of the 
Cross a peculiar and inexhaustible treasure for 
the affectionate feelings. The idea of the Oeav- 
6po)7ro<s^ the God whose goings forth have been 
from everlasting, yet visible to men for their re- 
demption as an earthly, temporal creature, liv- 
ing, acting, and suffering among themselves, 
then (which is yet more important) transferring 
to the unseen place of his spiritual agency the 
same humanity he wore on earth, so that the 
lapse of generations can in no way affect the 
conception of his identity ; this is the most pow- 
erful thought that ever addressed itself to a 
human imagination. It is the irov aroi, which 
alone was wanted to move the world. Here 
was solved at once the great problem which so 
long had distressed the teachers of mankind, 



406 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

how to make virtue tlie object of passion,* and 
to secure at once the warmest enthusiasm in 

* It is a thought for meditation, not for wonder, that the same 
principle which worked out the exaltation of human virtue into 
a holiness of which ancient times had no model, wrought like- 
wise a development of human crime, equally unknown to antiq- 
uity. The life of Fenelon was contemporaneous with the revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantes. In human things pain ever borders 
upon pleasure, evil upon good, and the source of one is often the 
source of the other. The destiny of the race must be accomplished 
in no other manner than the destiny of individuals, to whom good 
never comes unmixed. Sufficient for us, if that good predomi- 
nate ; if the progress of the species, as well as of the individual, 
be towards the Higher and the Better? Let us not with the 
fanatical Encyclopedists see nothing in the Prince of Peace, but 
the sword which he sent upon the earth. But let us not, on the 
other side, with some inconsiderate apologists of Revelation, be 
content with the flimsy answer, that to ascribe the spread of in- 
tolerance to the spread of religion is to confound use with abuse, 
proximity with causation. No such confusion is made. The 
question is not, whether some precepts of the Christian legislator 
are not directly contravened by acts of fanatical oppression. On 
this no doubt can exist. But the true question is, whether there 
are not principles in human nature, which render a system of 
Monotheism, especially such a Monotheism as the Christian, a 
source of unavoidable persecution. It seems to us that this ques- 
tion must be answered in the affirmative. That mighty novelty, 
the love of God, which we have traced in its beneficial effects on 
all the virtues, had yet a separate tendency to enfeeble some which 
regard our fellow-beings. That love, if admitted at all, was by its 
nature exclusive and absorbing. Its object was the Highest, the 
Only Reality: it required the whole heart; it took the heart from 
its home on earth, to pillow it upon the clouds of Heaven. The 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 407 

the heart with the clearest perception of right 
and wrong in the understanding. The char- 
charities of father, husband, and child, were invigorated by it only 
so far as the objects of these happened to coincide with Avhat was 
considered a far higlier aim. Even then, though the act might not 
differ, the motive did. Love to God, said the eloquent preachers, 
is as the gravitation of the planets to their sun : let it once cease to 
actuate the creature, and he falls into erroneous disorder. It must 
be the sole, or at least the principal motive of every thought, and 
word, and deed. But motives unexercised become naturally feeble. 
Those who would love their neighbor only for the love of God, if 
they obeyed this difficult precept, came to love their neighbor not 
at all. But yet more, Avhere these duties appeared contrary, was 
the overruling character of the new element perceived. To sacri- 
fice the dearest affections to Christ was the most sacred of obliga- 
tions; and while in some instances this was done with a bleeding 
heart, others perhaps may have made the discovery, that a more 
easy gratification of sensibility was to be found in devotion, than 
in the practice of an ordinary, but laborious virtue. Again, with 
love came jealousy. The Heathens had no religious wars; for it 
hurt no man that different deities should be worshipped with dif- 
ferent rites. But, under the rule of One, rivality of worship was 
an insult to be avenged in blood. And Conscience applauded the 
promptings of Pride. For what were the sufferings of a finite 
creature, in comparison with injury done to the Most High? Here- 
tics were burned for the pure and simple love of God ; for it was 
a worthier thing by all the difference between infinite and finite, 
to do pleasure to Him, than to spare pain to a mortal. Besides, 
the flames that consumed tlie body might save the soul; and 
what were the pangs of a few minutes weighed with the bliss of an 
immortality? At all events, they would save the souls of others, 
by preventing the further diffusion of heretical venom. What 
therefore the love of God imperatively urged, and the love of man 



408 PROF. ROSSETTrS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

acter of tlie blessed Founder of our faith be- 
came an abstract of morality to determine the 
judgment, while at the same time it remained 
personal, and liable to love. The written word 
and established church prevented a degeneration 
into ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant 
j)rinciple of vital religion always remained that 
of self-sacrifice to the Saviour. Not only the 
higher divisions of moral duties, but the simple, 
primary impulses of benevolence, were subordi- 
nated in this new absorbing passion. The world 
was loved " in Christ alone." The brethren were 
members of his mystical body. All the other 
bonds that had fastened down the Spirit of the 
Universe to our narrow round of earth, were as 
nothing in comparison to this golden chain of suf- 
fering and self-sacrifice, which at once riveted 

did not restrain, was a most palpable duty. We have traced with 
fidelity the dark lines of this picture. Let it teach us charity to 
our ancestors, humility for ourselves. The Reformation made an 
end of intolerant principles. Luther, who wished to monopolize, 
destroyed them. A Protestant, uncertain himself of the truth, may 
check his impulse to punish a fellow-creature who has a different 
idea of it. But it is only perhaps by an illogical humanity, that 
a Roman Catholic, believing in an infallible criterion of faith, apart 
from which none meet salvation, can resist, at the present day, 
those conclusions which armed St. Dominic against the peace of 
human society. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 409 

the heart of man to one, who, hke himself, was 
acquainted with grief. Pain is the deepest thing 
we have in our nature, and union through pain 
has always seemed more real and more holy than 
any other. It is easy to perceive how these ideas 
reign in the early Christian books, and how they 
continued to develop and strengthen themselves 
in the rising institutions of the Church. The 
monastic spirit was the principal emanation from 
them ; * but the same influence, though less appar- 
ent, was busily circulating through the organiza- 
tion of social life.* Who can read the eloquent com- 

* Especially as seen in its effects upon women. The Spouses of 
Christ were not so in metaphor alone. Often they literally fell in 
love with the object of their worship. Voluntarily immured from 
the sources of domestic affection, their hearts opened with glad 
surprise to a new and unsuspected substitute. The sexual com- 
plexion which distinguishes the writings of the female mystics, 
might lead us to hazard a conjecture, that the adoration of the 
Virgin arose, in the minds of the other sex, as a natural counter- 
poise in feeling to this passionate adoration of the Redeemer. It 
might be curious, in this point of view, to compare the writings of 
St. Bernard with those of St. Teresa on one side, and with the 
Platonic love-poems on the other. 

t Pascal, the most successful of those reasoners who have at- 
tempted to establish the divine origin of Christianity on its con- 
formity to the human character, endeavored, with almost unex- 
ampled heroism, to set his conduct in exact accordance with his 
principles. His constant struggle, therefore, was to hate himself, 



410 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DTSQUISIZIONI 

positions of Augustin, without being struck by their 
complexion of ardent passion, tempered, indeed, 

and to do good from no motive of affection towards his neighbor. 
God, he thought, was the only end of a rational creature: all 
other aims were abominable, because contrary to nature. Con- 
sistentl}' with these opinions, he sought to detach his friends and 
relations from himself. " Je ne suis la fin de personne," he would 
say, "il est injuste qu'on s'attache a moi." A society established 
on such grounds appeared to him the ideal commonwealth, to 
which man ought to tend, and in proportion to his attainment of 
which, his happiness would increase. It would be, in short, heav- 
en; and, it must be confessed, nothing could be more unlike earth. 
In considering the life of this extraordinary man, we should not 
forget that since his accident at the Pont de Neuilly, he was sub- 
ject to perpetual delusions of sight. Always, whether he sat or 
walked, he saw, 3'awning at his side, the gulf from which he had 
escaped. From a brain so overwrought, an imagination so con- 
stantl}^ and gloomily excited, one would hardh' expect a strong 
development of intellect. Yet in that time, and no other, he pro- 
duced the Pensdes and the Lettres Provinciales. Well might he 
exclaim, " Quelle chimere que I'homme! " Is it to mock us that 
reason and frenzy go hand in hand ; sentiments the most glorious, 
with consequences the most fatal '? Consider the life of Luther. 
Is it intelligible except on the supposition of frequent insanity? 
Yet to what heights of mind did Luther reach ! Who has agitated 
so powerfully the intellects of generations beyond him ! " Avev 
fiavtag," said Plato, " ovdecg TroujTrig." The experience of more 
than two thousand years since his day, might almost warrant an 
enlargement of that aphorism into a paradox, which perhaps, ac- 
cording to F. Schlegel's definition of paradoxes, may be only a 
"starthng truth:" that without madness none have been truly 
great. Sober judgments achieve no victories; they are the pio- 
neers of conquering minds. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 41 1 

and supported by the utmost keenness of intellect? 
At a later period in Church history, when rehg- 
ion began to languish under the pompous corrup- 
tions of the Romish schoolmen, a refuge was af- 
forded it by those writers denominated Mystics, 
who seem to have prepared the general Refor- 
mation, which they wanted courage to accom- 
plish. 

Their works are now generally neglected, 
although remarkable for much curious observa- 
tion of the turns and courses of feeling. One 
of them, however, the celebrated Imitation of 
Christ, by Thomas a Kempis, has escaped the 
fate of the rest ; and a perusal of it will be suffi- 
cient to convince us that the influence of Chris- 
tianity, in elevating the idea of love to the 
position it occupied at the dawn of our new 
civilization, was not merely indirect or collateral. 
A passion from which religion had condescended 
to borrow her most solemn phrases, her sublimest 
hopes, and her most mysterious modes of opera- 
tion, could not fiiil of acquiring new dignity in 
the eyes of Catholic Christians. It was to be 
expected that in this, as in all things, the Visible 
would vindicate its rights, and the sentiments 
whose origin was in the constitution of earthly 



412 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

nature, would lay hold on an earthly object as 
then' natural possession.* 

* Will it be considered serious trifling, if, in illustration of the 
argument in the text, we compare the expression of religious 
feeling in the mouth of Pascal, " Mon ame ne pent souffrir tout 
ce qui n'est pas Dieu," with the expression of natural love, pre- 
cisel}' similar, and perhaps borrowed, which Voltaire has given to 
Amenaide, " Et je ne puis souffrir ce qui n'est pas Tancr^de ? " 
The age of Louis XIV. might confirm our argument by many more 
important examples. Catholicism was then in an attitude of 
defence. The trumpets of Luther and Calvin had sent alarm 
through the fortress ; the warders were at their posts, and every 
resource of warfare was in readiness. We can judge well, there- 
fore, of the genius of the place. We will but allude to the cel- 
ebrated controversy on "pur Amour;" but we cannot resist an 
inclination to quote a passage from Bossuet, because he was on 
that occasion, as everybody knows, a rigid opponent of ra3'sticism, 
and his authority is therefore the more valuable. " La s'entendrait 
la derni^re consolation de I'Amour Divin, dans un endroit de 
Tame si profond et si retir^, que les sens n'en soupconnent rien, 
tant 11 est eloign^ de leur region : mais pour s'expliquer sur 
cette mati^re il faudrait un langage que le monde n'entendrait 
pas." 

But the effect, although not immediate, of the Protestant Ref- 
ormation, was to banish these expressions from the ordinary 
language of theology, and to change the tone of religious opinion 
hardl}^ less in Catholic than in Reformed States. In the latter, 
during the course of last century, religion began to assume the 
aspect of what may be called Revealed Deism. In their joy at 
discarding superstition for a more rational creed, men forgot that 
they were substituting a weaker motive for a stronger. They 
tried to satisfy philosophers at the expense of their kind. Their 
Christianity might be very simple and rational, but it had no 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTlPAPALEr 413 

But we cannot anticipate that Signor Rossetti 
will be brought to acknowledge this secondary- 
influence of Christianity, since it is evident he 
ascribes little historical importance to its imme- 
diate operations. We cannot understand the 
reasonableness of a theory, which represents 
religious feeling as less efficient in the Middle 
Ages than we find it at present. According to 
all analogy one might conjecture, d j^riori, that a 
literature, which was the outgi'owth of Christian 
civilization, would in its first beginnings be full 
and running over with abundant manifestations 
of its origin. When the Christian feelings and 
thoughts, long faraihar to men's inward bosoms, 

revolutionary power on the heart. It Avas not the Christianity 
which changed the aspect of the world. It was the same mistake 
in religion which is committed in ethics by those exaggerated Util- 
itarians, who would substitute utility as a motive of action for 
those primary aims implanted in us by the wisdom of nature. 
But among the English sectarians, and those of the Established 
Clergy who are denominated Low Church, some of the old spirit 
remained. Two energetic lines of our Calvinistic poet indicate, to 
an attentive reader, the great secondary cause to which we owe the 
original triumph of Christianity : 

" Talk of morality! Thou bleeding Lamb, 
The true morality is love to thee." 

In the same spirit, hundreds of years before, Augustin had summed 
up his ethical system in one sublime sentence, " Beatus qui Te 
amat, et amicum in Te, et inimicum propter Te ! " 



414 PROF. ROSSETTFS '^ DISQUISIZIONI 

but, in the absence of literature, incapable of 
permanent expression, first discovered those arts 
of imagination which are the natural, appointed 
exponents of our deeper emotions, should we not 
expect a voice of many songs would immediately 
break fortli, announcing in joy and power the 
rise of a new world from that barbaric chaos into 
which the old had been resolved ? Genius ever 
nourishes itself with Religion. A new spiritual 
truth is a pearl of great price to a soul gifted 
with spiritual power. It is the business of the 
Poet to number, and measure, and note down 
every form and fleeting appearance of human 
feeling. Gladly, and with an earnest thankful- 
ness, he perceives any new chamber of the heart ; 
but with what gratitude, with what exultation, 
with what bewilderment at these new effluences 
of celestial knowledge, must not the Poet have 
approached for the first time that sacred ark, in 
which the treasures of the Gospel had been 
safely borne through the diluvial times of North- 
ern domination ? And in the pomp of Catholic 
superstition, the slow and solemn chants, the 
white-robed processions, the incense, and the 
censers, and the golden baldacchins, with ever- 
burning lights, and images, and pictures, in 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 415 

whose rude forms a prophetic eye miglit even 
then discern the future arts of Raffaelle and 
Michelangiolo, " Like the man's tliouglit, hid in 
the infant's brain ; " in this ceremonial worship, 
so framed to attach the imagination and the 
senses, was there nothing to make a poet pause 
and adore ? The Beautiful was everywhere 
around men, waiting, and, as it were, calling for 
their love. Is it wonderful that the call was 
heard ? Is it wonderful that the feeling of rev- 
erence for that august name, the Church, — for 
its antiquity, its endurance, its unity, its wide- 
spread dominion, and yet mofe ample prospects 
of indefinite magnificence, should, in that day, 
have been often irresistible in the minds of im- 
aginative men, since even in these latter times, 
some are yet to be found, who, induced by no 
other motives, have abandoned the cold precincts 
of a more intellectual creed, to fall down before 
the altars of their forefathers, exclaiming, " Sero 
te amavi, pulchritude tam antiqua et tam nova, 
sero te amavi ! " Now, when a learned Professor 
comes to tell us that writings, apparently com- 
posed under the influence of religious impres- 
sions, are, in reality, composed in quite a different 
spirit, and does not at the same time show us 



4l6 PROF. ROSSETTFS '' DISQUISIZIONl 

other writings equal to these in merit, but really 
inspired by the genius of Catholicism, we are 
constrained to tell him, " Quodcunque ostendi 
mihi sic, incredulus odi." We have before 
us a plain intelligible cause, acting in a known 
manner, and in a direction made clear to us by 
experience. We have also an effect, apparently 
adequate to that cause, and resembling the 
effects we have known produced by it, with such 
difference, however, as we should have predicted 
from the partial alteration of circumstances. Now 
if this effect be shown to belong to some other 
cause that we never dreamed of, we are entitled 
to ask, where then is the result of the first? 
For that remains before us. It cannot be got 
rid of. We are certain it has been in action. 
The traces of that agency must exist somewhere, 
and from their nature must be obvious. If the 
Dante of the Divina Commedia was no Catholic ; 
if the Petrarch, who mourned at Valchiusa, 
never felt the hallowing force of religion ; if the 
splendors of Romish worship never fascinated 
the numberless lovers of the Beautiful, who sang 
in Provence, Italy, and Castile, where, we ask, 
are those other mighty spirits, equal in worth 
and power to these we have mentioned, in whom 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 417 

tlie predominant religion may have exhausted 
its capacities of enlightening and exalting? If 
none such can be produced (and it is notorious 
that none can), the theory must be false, for it 
is inconsistent with the phenomena it pretends 
to explain. 

We defy any man, of competent abilities, to 
read the poems of Dante, without a conviction 
that he is reading the works of a religious poet.* 

* La Martine has said, " this is the age for studying Dante." 
Rossetti says the same; but with how different a meaning ! The 
one thinks of the Catholic, the other of the Patriot. Rossetti does 
not perceive that what he supposes to be true of the age of Dante, 
is strictly true of the present, viz: that Italians judge of every- 
thing by a political criterion. We have known many able and 
Avorthy Italians, both in exile and in their own land, but none who 
could see a yard out of the atmosphere of their local liberalism. 
They talk of poetry, but they mean politics. This explains not 
only the fashionable Dantismo, but a much more curious phenom- 
enon, their extravagant admiration of Alfieri. We once met an 
intelligent Italian, not unacquainted Avith the literature of our 
country, who expressed to us his determination never to read 
Shakspeare, because he was so firmly convinced of Alfieri's infin- 
ite superiority to every dramatic writer that had written or could 
write, that he considered it loss of time to peruse any other ! We 
are very heretical on this subject. We agree with Mr. Rose (Let- 
ters from the North of Italy), that never did a man set up for 
a poet with so small a capital as Alfieri. There is some poetic 
material in his " Life; " but none that Ave could eA^er discoA-er in 
his plays. How much poetic genius, indeed, can Ave suppose a 
27 



4l8 PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

The spirit of Catholic Christianity breathes in 
every line. The Ghibelline, indeed, hates the 
Papal party and Papal usurpations ; he makes no 
secret of it ! no words can express more plainly 
or more energetically than his, a just and coura- 
geous indignation against all ecclesiastical tyranny. 
But the man is a devout Catholic, and respects 
the chair of the Apostle, while he denounces 
those who sat upon it. The sword of Peter, not 
the keys of Peter, is the object of his aversion. 
The same voice, he would tell us, that said " Put 
up thy sword," in the garden by the mount of 
Olives, said also, " Tu es Petrus, et super banc 
petram fundabo Ecclesiam meam." When Ros- 
setti would have us believe that in those fervent 
thoughts, those rich descriptions, those deepr 
drawn aspirations, which have hitherto been 
thought to convey Dante's profound sense of 
spiritual things, there is really nothing but a co- 
vert expression of political projects ; that Paradise 
is not * the sojourn of blessed souls through an 

man to possess, who writes a drama in French prose in order to 
translate it into the verse of his own language ! 

* That reference to man's present life, which Dante himself 
mentions (Epist. to Can Delia Scala), and which we readily allow, 
is not liable to the objection here made. We say this to prevent 
cavils. The subjects are homogeneous, and differ only in degree. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 4^9 

eternity spent in tlie love of God, but a future 
prosperous condition of the German Court ; that 
Hell is not the awful place, where hope is left for- 
ever by all who enter therein, nor Purgatory the 
intermediate world of trial, where in purifying 
pains the " spirits happily born " rejoice " to make 
themselves beautifol ; " but the one is the bad 
state of Italy under a corrupt government, and 
the other a secret club at Florence, which looks 
forward to the triumph of its machinations ; when 
we are called upon to believe this, we cannot but 
feel that, not only the dignity and magnificence of 
the poem are materially lowered by such an hy- 
pothesis, but the very foundations of our behef in 
testimony are affected. If the Divina Commedia 
is the work of a heretic, whose Paradise was en- 
tirely limited to this world, so «nay also be the 
Confessions of Augustin or the Thoughts of Pas- 
cal* The former, indeed, has often struck us as 

The good man's hopes of heaven are but prolongations of his earthly 
reward. The kingdom within, that cometh not with observation, 
contains, as it were in germ, the kingdom without, that shines from 
one part of heaven to the other. 

* Even in such an extravagance he would not have the merit of 
orioinality. Father Hardouin, in his posthumous treatise » Athei 
det'lcti," gives a long list of atheists, in which the names of Jan- 
senius, Amauld, and Pascal, are conspicuous. Yet Hardoum, hke 
Rossetti, professed submission to the Catholic Church, and died 



420 PROF. ROSSETTI'S '' DISQUISIZIONI 

bearing no little resemblance in spirit to the com- 
positions of the Florentine bard. In both there 
is a freshness, an admiring earnestness, about their 
expression of Christian ideas, which shows the 
novelty of those ideas to the frame of European 
thought. This is indeed much more evident in 
Augustin, because he wrote six centuries earlier, 
and wrote in Latin, so that the discrepancy be- 
tween the new wine and old bottles is perpetually 
betraying itself. The Ciceronian language is far 
too effete a frame to sustain the infused spark of 

with all the appearance of belief. At the close of last century 
the same mania seized on two men, to whose opinions it was 
more conformable, Marechal and Lalande, one of whom published 
a Dictionary of Atheists, and the other a Supplement to the Dic- 
tionar}', in which Atheism was shamelessly imputed to writers of 
all sorts, on the most futile pretences. Lalande, indeed, carried 
this so far, that he inscribed the name of Delille for a misprint in 
a single line, and then hastened in great glee to inform his old 
instructor of the discovery he had made. " Mon ami " answered 
the venerable Poet, " il faut que vous soyez fou, pour voir dans 
mes vers ce que je n'y ai jamais mis, et de ne pas voir dans le 
ciel ce que tout le monde y voit." There is a closer resemblance 
between Hardouin and Rossetti than the general extravagance of 
their theories. The Jesuit did not leave Dante alone. He saw 
proofs in the Divina Commedia that it was not what it appeared. 
But his conclusions were less revolutionary than those of our 
modern Hardouin. He contented himself with ascribing the 
Commedia to some person or persons unknown; and respected the 
historical character of the Poet, while he destroj^ed the evidences 
of his senilis. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALEr 421 

heavenly fire. It lieavcs beneath those active 
stirrings with the tliroes of a convulsive weak- 
ness. In Dante, on the other hand, the form 
and spirit perfectly correspond, as if adapted 
to each other by pre established harmony. But 
in earnestness and apparent sincerity, we know 
not any difference between the bishop of Hippo 
and the exile of Ravenna. If the one is an im- 
postor, so may be the other. Or why stop there ? 
Why not at once startle the world with the infor- 
mation, that theology has been always a masonic 
trick ? That the passions of which we have been 
speaking never had any real existence, and it is 
therefore worse than useless to look for their ef- 
fects ? There needs only one bold application of 
the Professor's principles, and the whole edifice 
of religion comes crumbling to the ground. He 
seems to consider that, in every instance, proba- 
bilities are against a man's meaning what he says. 
Earnestness, solemnity, lofty thoughts, sublime 
imaginations, all these should only make us sus- 
pect mischief, and look out for a hidden meaning. 
Veracity, according to him, left the earth with 
Astraea. We do Signor Rossetti the justice to 
suppose he has not maturely deliberated on the 
consequences to which his principles conduct him. 



422 PROF. ROSSETTPS '' DISQUISIZIONI 

From one passage, indeed, in his book, unless we 
have mistaken a meaning so dimly intimated,* we 
conjecture he holds ulterior opinions, which he 
thinks it imprudent to communicate. But, al- 
though cautious enough to be illogical in resisting 
the conclusions of his own premises, when specu- 
lating on sacred subjects, there is no reason to 
anticipate any pause in his devastating progress 
along the fields of profane history. Already we 
have intimations that the later poets of Italy are 
no more exempt from his transforming powers, 
than their predecessors of the fourteenth century. 
Nor will it surprise us to find him quite at home 
in the territories of romance. Doubtless, if he is 
acquainted with the Sj)anish language, we shall 
have valuable results of his inquiries in that 
quarter. Perhaps our old friend, Don Quixote, 
may turn out a disguised Ghibelline ; and honest 
Sancho may be only the knight himself in his 
everyday countenance, a sort of exterior man, 

* " lo stesso che per pertinacia di studio ho scorto cio che altri 
sapeva per coramunicazione segreta, avrei potuto io mai svelarlo, se 
fossi in Italia rimaso ? Ne anche fuori di la avrei alzato la cortina 
del tutto, contentando mi di sollevarne un solo lembo, come gia 
fatto avea, se necessita di difesa non mi avesse fatto ardita la 
mano. Ma andero io sempre innanzi? No, Esce di sotto a un velo 
una voce che grida, Noli me tangere; ed io mi inchino e mi arretro.^^ 
— p. 450. 



SULLO SPIRITO ANTIPAPALE." 423 

miicli in tlie same way as, we have seen, Laura 
and Fiammetta were only faces or vestments of 
their own lovers. Many a profound meaning, 
we doubt not, Hes hid in the windmills. And 
woe to those who think the virago Maritornes no 
better than she should be ! 

But we will not take leave of the ingenious 
Professor with a jest. We wish him well in 
his fui'ther progress. We wait patiently for 
his promised proofs, and till they appear, shall 
not dismiss our old prejudices on these subjects, 
lest we find nothing in their room but a dismal 
void. Signor Rossetti is very sensitive to criti- 
cism ; but we trust he will believe our remarks 
at least to have been made in fairness and love 
of truth. He will not, perhaps, be the worse 
for bearing in mind some gentle warnings we 
have given. Let him moderate his pretensions, 
and enlarge his views. He may succeed possi- 
bly in establishing the principle, hypothetically 
assumed by him, as a vera causa ; but that he 
should prove it to be the sole or the chief ac- 
tuating principle, to which all the historical 
phenomena in question are to be referred, we 
believe, for the reasons already stated, to be 
altogether impossible. 



EXTRACT FROM A 

REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 

PUBLISfiLED IN THE ENGLISHMAN'S MAGAZINE, 1831. 



It is not true, as tlie exclusive admirers of 
Mr. Wordsworth would have it, that the high- 
est species of poetry is the reflective ; it is a 
gross fallacy, that because certain opinions are 
acute or profound, the expression of them by 
the imagination must be eminently beautiful. 
Whenever the mind of the artist suffers itself 
to be occupied, during its periods of creation, 
by any other predominant motive than the de- 
sire of beauty, the result is false in art. Now, 
there is undoubtedly no reason why he may 
►not find beauty in those moods of emotion, 
which arise from the combinations of reflective 
thought; and it is possible that he may delin- 
eate these with fidelity, and not be led astray 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 425 

by any suggestions of an unpoetical mood. But 
though possible, it is hardly probable : for a man 
whose reveries take a reasoning turn, and who 
is accustomed to measure his ideas by their 
logical relations rather than the congruity of 
the sentiments to which they refer, will be apt 
to mistake the pleasure he has in knoAving a 
thing to be true, for the pleasure he would have 
in knowmg it to be beautiful, and so will pile 
his thoughts in a rhetorical battery, that they 
may convince, instead of letting them flow in 
a natural course of contemplation, that they 
may enrapture. It would not be difficult to 
show, by reference to the most admired poems 
of Wordsworth, that he is frequently charge- 
able with this error; and that much has been 
said by him which is good as philosophy, pow- 
erful as rhetoric, but false as poetry. Perhaps 
this very distortion of the truth did more in the 
peculiar juncture of our literary affairs to enlarge 
and liberalize the genius of our age, than could 
have been effected by a less sectarian temper. 
However this may be, a new school of reformers 
soon began to attract attention, who, professing 
the same independence of immediate favor, took 
their stand on a different region of Parnassus 



426 EXTRACT FROM A 

from tliat occupied by the Lakers,* and one, in 
our opinion, much less hable to perturbing cur- 
rents of air from ungenial chmates. We shall 
not hesitate to express our conviction, that the 
cockney school (as it was termed in derision 
from a cursory view of its accidental circum- 
stances) contained more genuine inspiration, 
and adhered more steadily to that portion of 
truth which it embraced, than any form of art 
that has existed in this country since the days 
of Milton. Their caposetta was Mr. Leigh Hunt, 
who did little more than point the way, and was 
diverted from his aim by a thousand personal pre- 
dilections and political habits of thought. But 
he w^as followed by two men of very superior 
make ; men who were born poets, lived poets, 
and went poets to their untimely graves. Shel- 
ley and Keats were indeed of opposite genius ; 
that of the one was vast, impetuous, and sub- 
lime, the other seemed to be " fed with honey 

* This cant term was justly ridiculed by Mr. Wordsworth's sup- 
porters; but it was not so easy to substitute an inoffensive denom- 
ination. We are not at all events the first who have used it with- 
out a contemptuous intention, for we remember to have heard a 
disciple quote Aristophanes in its behalf: — ' Ovrog bv tuv rj-^adcdv 
Twr(5' Civ 6p(W v(jiEiQ (iet, ulla AIMNAI02. " This is no common, 
no barn-door fowl: No, but a Lakist." 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 427 

dew," and to have " drunk the milk of Paradise." 
Even the softness of Shelley comes out in bold, 
rapid, comprehensive strokes ; he has no pa- 
tience for minute beauties, unless they can be 
massed into a general effect of grandeur. On 
the other hand, the tenderness of Keats cannot 
sustain a lofty flight ; he does not generalize or 
alleoi;orize nature : his imaoination works with 
few symbols, and reposes willingly on what is 
given freely. Yet in this formal opposition of 
character there is, it seems to us, a ground- 
work of similarity sufficient for the purposes 
of classification, and constituting a remarkable 
point in the progress of literature. They are 
both poets of sensation rather than reflection. 
Susceptible of the slightest impulse from ex- 
ternal nature, their fine organs trembled into 
emotion at colors, and sounds, and movements, 
unperceived or unregarded by duller tempera- 
ments. Rich and clear were then' perceptions 
of visible forms ; full and deep then' feelings of 
music. So vivid was the delight attending the 
simple exertions of eye and ear, that it became 
mingled more and more with their trains of ac- 
tive thought, and tended to absorb their whole 
being mto the energy of sense. Other poets 



428 EXTRACT FROM A 

seek for images to illustrate tlieir conceptions; 
these men had no need to seek; they lived in 
a world of images ; for the most important and 
extensive portion of their life consisted in those 
emotions which are immediately conversant with 
the sensation. Like the hero of Goethe's novel, 
they would hardly have been affected by what 
is called the pathetic parts of a book ; but the 
merely beautiful passages, " those fi^om which 
the spirit of the author looks clearly and mildly 
forth," would have melted them to tears. Hence 
they are not descriptive, they are picturesque. 
They are not smooth and negatively harmonious ; 
they are ftill of deep and varied melodies. This 
powerful tendency of imagination to a life of 
immediate sympathy with the external universe, 
is not nearly so liable to false views of art as 
the opposite disposition of purely intellectual 
contemplation. For where beauty is constantly 
passing before " that inward eye, which is the 
bliss of solitude ; " where the soul seeks it as a 
perpetual and necessary refreshment to the 
sources of activity and intuition ; where all the 
other sacred ideas of our nature, — the idea of 
good, the idea of perfection, the idea of truth, 
are habitually contemplated through the medium 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 429 

of this predominant mood, so that they assume 
its color, and are subject to its pecuHar hiws ; 
there is httle danger that the ruhng passion of 
the whole mind will cease to direct its creative 
operations, or the energetic principle of love for 
the beautiful sink, even for a brief period, to 
the level of a mere notion in the understand- 
ing. We do not deny that it is, on other ac- 
counts, dangerous for frail humanity to linger 
with fond attachment in the vicinity of sense. 
Mhids of this description are especially liable 
to moral temptations ; and upon them, more 
than any, it is incumbent to remember, that 
their mission as men, which they share with 
their fellow-beings, is of infinitely higher inter- 
est than their mission as artists, which they pos- 
sess by rare and exclusive privilege. But it is 
obvious that, critically speaking, such tempta- 
tions are of slight moment. • Not the gross and 
evident passions of our nature, but the elevated 
and less separable desires, are the dangerous 
enemies which misguide the poetic spirit in its 
attempts at self-cultivation. That dehcate sense 
of fitness which grows with the growth of artist 
feelings, and strengthens with their strength, mi- 
til it acquires a celerity and weight of decision 



430 EXTRACT FROM A 

hardly inferior to the correspondent judgments 
of conscience, is weakened by every indul- 
gence of heterogeneous aspirations, however 
pure they may be, however lofty, however suit- 
able to human nature. We are therefore de- 
cidedly of opinion that the heights and depths 
of art are most within the reach of those who 
have received from nature the " fearful and won- 
derful " constitution we have described, whose 
poetry is a sort of magic, producing a number 
of impressions, too multiplied, too minute, and 
too diversified to allow of our tracing them to 
their causes, because just such was the effect, 
even so boundless and so bewildering, produced 
on then' imaginations by the real appearance of 
nature. These thino-s beinsi: so, oui' friends of 
the new school had evidently much reason to 
recur to the maxim laid down by Mr. Words- 
worth, and to appeal from the immediate judg- 
ment of lettered or unlettered contemporaries 
to the decision of a more equitable posterity. 
How should they be popular, whose senses told 
them a richer and ampler tale than most men 
could understand, and who constantly expressed, 
because they constantly felt, sentiments of ex- 
quisite pleasure or pain, which most men were 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS 43 1 

not permitted to experience ? The public very 
naturally derided them as visionaries, and gib- 
beted in terrorem those inaccuracies of diction 
occasioned sometimes by the speed of their con- 
ceptions, sometimes by the inadequacy of lan- 
guage to their peculiar conditions of thought. 
But it may be asked, does not this line of argu- 
ment prove too much ? Does it not prove that 
there is a barrier between these poets and all 
other persons so strong and immovable, that, 
as has been said of the Supreme Essence, we 
must be themselves before we can understand 
them in the least ? Not only are they not hable 
to sudden and vulgar estimation, but the lapse 
of ages, it seems, will not consolidate their fame, 
nor the suffi\ages of the wise few produce any 
impression, however remote or slowly matured, 
on the judgment of the incapacitated many. We 
answer, this is not the import of our argument. 
Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in 
all his conceptions, to the common nature of us 
all. Art is a lofty tree, and may shoot up far 
beyond our grasp, but its roots are in daily life 
and experience. Every bosom contains the ele- 
ments of those complex emotions which the 
artist feels, and every head can, to a certain 



432 EXTRACT FROM A 

extent, go over in itself the process of their com- 
bination, so as to understand his expressions and 
sympathize with his state. But this requires 
exertion ; more or less, indeed, according to the 
difference of occasion, but always some degree 
of exertion. For since the emotions of the poet, 
during composition, follow a regular law of as- 
sociation, it follows that to accompany their prog- 
ress up to the harmonious prospect of the whole, 
and to perceive the proper dependence of every 
step on that which preceded, it is absolutely 
necessary to start from the same pointy i. e. clearly 
to apprehend that leading sentiment of the poet's 
mind, by their conformity to which the host of 
suggestions are arranged. Now this requisite 
exertion is not willingly made by the large ma- 
jority of readers. It is so easy to judge capri- 
ciously, and according to indolent impulse ! 
For very many, therefore, it has become morally 
impossible to attain the author's point of vision, 
on account of their habits, or their prejudices, or 
their circumstances ; but it is never physically im- 
possible, because nature has placed in every man 
the simple elements, of which art is the sublima- 
tion. Since then this demand on the reader for 
activity, when he wants to peruse his author 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 433 

in a luxurious passiveness, is the very thing that 
moves his bile, it is obvious that those writers 
will be always most popular who require the 
least degree of exertion. Hence, whatever is 
mixed up with art, and appears under its sem- 
blance, is always more favorably regarded than 
art free and unalloyed. Hence, half the fash- 
ionable poems in the world are mere rhetoric, 
and half the remainder are, perhaps, not liked 
by the generality for their substantial merits. 
Hence, likewise, of the really pure composi- 
tions, those are most universally agreeable which 
take for their primary subject the usual passions 
of the heart, and deal with them in a simple 
state, without applying the transforming powers 
of high imagination. Love, friendship, ambi- 
tion, religion, &c., are matters of daily experi- 
ence even amongst unimaginative tempers. The 
forces of association, therefore, are ready to work 
in these directions, and little effort of will is ne- 
cessary to follow the artist. For the same rea- 
son, such subjects often excite a partial power 
of composition, which is no sign of a truly poetic 
organization. We are very far fi'om wishing to 
depreciate this class of poems, whose influence 
is so extensive, and communicates so refined a. 
28 



434 EXTRACT FROM A 

pleasure. We contend only tliat the facility 
with which its impressions are communicated 
is no proof of its elevation as a form of art, but 
rather the contrary. What, then, some may be 
ready to exclaim, is the pleasure derived by most 
men, from Shakspeare, or Dante, or Homer, en- 
tirely false and factitious? If these are really 
masters of their art, must not the energy re- 
quired of the ordinary intelligences that come 
in contact with their mighty genius, be the great- 
est possible ? How comes it then, that they are 
popular ? Shall we not say, after all, that the dif- 
ference is in the power of the author, not in the 
tenor of his meditations ? Those eminent spirits 
find no difficulty in conveying to common appre- 
hensions their lofty sense and profound observa- 
tion of nature. They keep no aristocratic state, 
apart from the sentiments of society at large ; 
they speak to the hearts of all, and by the mag- 
netic force of their conceptions, elevate inferior 
intellects into a higher and purer atmosphere. 
The truth contained in this observation is un- 
doubtedly important ; geniuses of the most uni- 
versal order, and assigned by destiny to the most 
propitious era of a nation's literary development, 
have a clearer and a larfrer access to the minds 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 435 

of tlieir compatriots than can ever open to those 
who are circumscribed by less fortunate circum- 
stances. In the youthful periods of any literature 
there is an expansive and commmiicative tendency 
in mind, wliich produces unreservedness of com- 
munion, and reciprocity of vigor between differ- 
ent orders of intellio-ence. Without abandonin<r 
the ground which has always been defended by 
the partisans of Mr. Wordsworth, who declare 
with perfect truth, that the nmnber of real ad- 
mirers of what is really admirable in Shakspeare 
and Milton is much fewer than the nmnber of 
apparent admirers might lead one to imagine, 
we may safely assert that the intense thoughts 
set in circulation by those " orbs of song " and 
their noble satellites '^ in great Eliza's golden 
time," did not fail to awaken a proportionable 
intensity of the natures of numberless auditors. 
Some might feel feebly, some strongly ; the ef- 
fect would vary according to the character of the 
recipient ; but upon none was the stimng in- 
fluence entirely unimpressive. The knowledge 
and power thus imbibed became a part of na- 
tional existence ; it was ours as Englishmen ; 
and amid the flux of o-enerations and customs 
we retain unimpaired this privilege of inter- 



436 EXTRACT FROM A 

course with greatness. But the age in which 
we live comes late in our national progress. 
That first raciness and juvenile vigor of litera- 
ture, when nature " wantoned as in her prime, 
and played at will her virgin fancies " is gone 
never to return. Since that day we have un- 
dergone a period of degradation. " Every hand- 
icraftsman has worn the mask of poesy." It 
would be tedious to repeat the tale so often re- 
lated of the French contagion and the heresies 
of the Popian school. With the close of the 
last century came an era of reaction, an era of 
painful struggle to bring our over-civilized con- 
dition of thought into union with the fresh pro- 
ductive spirit that brightened the morning of 
our Hterature. But repentance is unlike inno- 
cence ; the laborious endeavor to restore, has 
more complicated methods of action than the 
freedom of untainted nature. Those different 
powers of poetic disposition, the energies of Sen- 
sitive,* of Reflective, of Passionate Emotion, 

* We are aware that this is not the right word, being appropri- 
ated by common use to a different signification. Those who think 
the caution given by Caesar should not stand in the way of urgent 
occasion, may substitute " sensuous; *' a word in use amongst our 
elder divines, and revived by a few bold writers in our own 
time. 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 437 

which in former times were intermingled, and 
derived from mutual support an extensive em- 
pire over the feelings of men, were now re- 
strained within separate spheres of agency. The 
whole system no longer worked harmoniously, 
and by intrinsic harmony acquired external free- 
dom ; but there arose a violent and unusual 
action in the several component functions, each 
for itself, all striving to reproduce the regular 
power which the whole had once enjoyed. Hence 
the melancholy which so evidently characterizes 
the spirit of modem poetry ; hence that return 
of the mind upon itself and the habit of seeking 
rehef in idiosyncrasies rather than community 
of interest. In the old times the poetic impulse 
. went along with the general impulse of the na- 
tion ; in these it is a reaction against it, a check 
acting for conservation against a propulsion to- 
wards change. We have indeed seen it urged 
in some of our fashionable publications, that the 
diflPusion of poetry must be in the direct ratio of 
the diffiision of machinery, because a highly civ- 
ilized people must have new objects of interest, 
and thus a new field will be open to description. 
But this notable argument forgets that agamst 
this objective amelioration may be set the de- 



438 EXTRACT FROM A 

crease of subjective power, arising from a preva- 
lence of social activity, and a continual absorp- 
tion of the higher feelings into the palpable in- 
terests of ordinary life. The French Revolution 
may be a finer theme than the war of Troy ; 
but it does not so evidently follow that Homer 
is to find his superior. Our inference, therefore, 
from this change in the relative position of artists 
to the rest of the community is, that modern 
poetry in proportion to its depth and truth is 
likely to have little immediate authority over 
public opinion. Admirers it will have ; sects 
consequently it will form ; and these strong 
under-currents will in time sensibly affect the 
principal stream. Those writers, whose genius, 
though great, is not strictly and essentially 
poetic, become mediators between the votaries 
of art and the careless cravers for excitement.* 
Art herself, less manifestly glorious than in her 
periods of undisputed supremacy, retains lier 
essential prerogatives, and forgets not to raise 
up chosen spirits who may minister to her state 
and vindicate her title. 

* May we not compare them to the bright but unsubstantial 
clouds which, in still evenings, girdle the sides of lofty mountains, 
and seem to form a natural connection between the lowly valleys 
spread out beneath, and those isolated peaks above that hold the 
"last parley with the setting sun? " 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 439 

One of the faithful Islam, a poet m the truest 
and highest sense, we are anxious to present to 
our readers. He has yet written httle and pub- 
hshed less ; but in these " preludes of a loftier 
strain" we recognize the inspiring God. Mr. 
Tennyson belongs decidedly to the class we have 
already described as Poets of Sensation. He 
sees all the forms of nature mth the " eruditus 
oculus," and his ear has a fairy fineness. There 
is a strange earnestness in his worship of beauty 
which throws a charm over his impassioned song, 
more easily felt than described, and not to be 
escaped by those who have once felt it. We 
think he has more definitiveness and roundness 
of general conception than the late Mr. Keats, 
and is much more free from blemishes of diction 
and hasty capriccios of fancy. He has also this 
advantage over that poet and his friend Shelley, 
that-he comes before the public unconnected with 
any political party or peculiar system of opinions. 
Nevertheless, true to the theory we have stated, 
we believe his participation in their characteristic 
excellences is sufficient to secvu'e him a share of 
their unpopularity. The volume of '^ Poems, 
chiefly Lyrical," does not contain above 154 
pages ; but it shows us much more of the char- 



440 EXTRACT FROM A 

acter of its parent mind, than many books we have 
known of much larger compass and more boastful 
pretensions. The features of original genius are 
clearly and strongly marked. The author imi- 
tates nobody ; we recognize the spirit of his age, 
but not the individual form of this or that writer. 
His thoughts bear no more resemblance to Byron 
or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer 
or Calderon, Firdusi or Calidasa. We have re- 
marked five distinctive excellences of his own 
manner. First his luxuriance of imagination, 
and at the same time, his control over it. Sec- 
ondly, his power of embodying himself in ideal 
characters, or rather moods of character, with 
such extreme accuracy of adjustment, that the 
circumstances of the narration seem to have a 
natural correspondence with the predominant 
feeling, and, as it were, to be evolved from it 
by assimilative force. Thirdly his vivid, pictur- 
esque delineation of objects, and the peculiar 
skill with which he holds all of them fused, to 
borrow a metaphor from science, in a medium 
of strong emotion. Fourthly, the variety of his 
lyrical measures, and exquisite modulation of 
harmonious words and cadences to the swell and 
fall of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the ele- 



REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S POEMS. 441 

vated habits of thought, impHed in these composi- 
tions, and imparting a mellow soberness of tone, 
more impressive to our minds, than if the au- 
thor had drawn up a set of opinions in verse, 
and sought to instruct the understanding rather 
than to communicate the love of beauty to the 
heart. 

We shall proceed to give our readers some 
specimens in illustration of these remarks, and 
if possible, w^e will give them entire ; for no poet 
can be faii'ly judged of by fragments, least of all, 
a poet hke Mr. Tennyson, whose mind conceives 
nothing isolated, nothing abrupt, but every part 
with reference to some other part, and in subser- 
vience to the idea of the whole. 



THE END. 



CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON. 



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